


Amaranthine

by satan_copilots_my_tardis



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood Play, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, POV Second Person, Playing real loose with the game mechanics, Reader is not a character, Sort Of, Xenophilia, monsterfuckers get some rights, no beta we die like fools, timeloop-freeform?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:53:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26727727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satan_copilots_my_tardis/pseuds/satan_copilots_my_tardis
Summary: Amaranthine: everlasting, unfading.“We had another chat too.” He offers very diplomatically.“Right.” There is no way you can run all the way to the cafeteria to call the emergency meeting. But maybe you can keep him talking, long enough for the lights to come back on. If nothing else that will make it harder for him to make a clean getaway. “Do you have these chats with my crewmates?”“No, none of them have ever seemed much for conversation after realizing what I am.”The crew of the Skeld is trapped. They count cycles instead of hours or days now. It all leaves Black with a lot of questions, and maybe all of these iterations are starting to drive him a little insane. Because asking the things that have been sent to kill his crewmates and himself has started to seem like a good idea.
Relationships: Black/White, imposter/crewmate - Relationship
Comments: 64
Kudos: 514





	Amaranthine

**Author's Note:**

> Rolling in here with a 24K word story about some beanie babies, so you can bet that I made up a shit ton of lore. I'm here for a good time and to play fast and loose with game mechanics as storytelling elements. Enjoy

Your suit is black. And that’s what the others call you. You all must have had names at some point, but you don’t remember them. It’s been hundreds of iterations since you could even remember the first letter of your name. Sometimes some of the others use nicknames for one another, sometimes silly, sometimes rude, but they pull the titles out of thin air and they never last for more than one iteration. Then it’s back to,

“Cyan, finish your tasks,”

“Green get to decontamination,”

“Orange were you near electrical?”, because that is always easier. And when a meeting is called they don’t have time for delays. 

“It’s started again.” Blue says solemnly. You don’t need the clarification, you doubt any of you do. Red is glaringly absent from the table. There’s only one way to be absent from a meeting. Red has always been a bit loud, a bit too quick to point fingers, a bit pushier than his station really merited, but you’re not happy that he’s dead. You’re never happy when one of your crewmates dies. You wonder how long Red will be trapped wandering the strange echo of the ship, if he’ll come back next cycle or if something else will take his place. But that’s not the issue now. Red is gone and that means that your brief respite is over. Today’s tasks must be completed with efficiency or you will all be killed one by one. 

“You called the meeting, but you didn’t report the body.” Green says.

“I haven’t found the body, I just had a bad feeling.” Blue replies.

You make note of that.

“Has anyone found the body?” Around the table you all reply to the negative. “Where were you all?” You usually like Green, they are always quick to contribute, keep everyone on task and try to get as much information on the table as possible to prevent, well, no one need be reminded of the horrible sound the second before the airlock opens. But they’re dangerous too. Sometimes, when they are the monster lurking around the ship, this information gathering only serves to muddy the water. Usually Red’s loud decisive talk can cut through it. And he’s already dead. You make note of that as well.

You all sound off where you were. Orange, Yellow, and Pink were together in Admin, Blue was waiting in the Cafeteria to call the meeting, you were on your way to Weapons, Cyan, Brown, and Green were all in electrical, Purple was in storage, Lime was in the upper engine, and White was by the reactor. Blue tentatively clears you, having watched you walk down the hallway and start up the weapons system while Cyan, Brown, and Green can all vouch for having seen Purple in Storage, but are unable to confirm if he stayed there the entire time, White says he saw Lime as he went to the reactor but they are left in the same state as Purple. There is no body, no concrete proof, and nothing further you can do now. Red isn’t here to insist on a vote. The meeting ends.

You hope you’re still around for the next one. 

* * *

You don’t interact with the others much during a cycle. Tasks need to be done, decisions made, and unless you’re grouping up for safety, you don’t need the distractions. You finish with the meteors as the reactor is sabotaged. Shit. You’re pretty far away from that. You’re sure the rest of your crewmates are going to be rushing in that direction and if the monster wearing one of their skins is smart they’ll be hanging around to pick off stragglers while everyone is distracted. You hesitate another moment before making the decision to move into the halfway between Weapons and the Cafeteria and stay put. The others will take care of the reactor or someone will call a meeting and for some reason, by the rules of this never ending loop you all are trapped in, the reactor will stabilize. And if the imposter does come and find you here you hope that this iteration they have the gun. You don’t have a favorite way to die persay, but the gun, perhaps by the nature of being so fast and brutally _human_ is preferable to you than some of the others. 

The alarm continues to blare, red light washing over the room and you wonder if you are in Hell. It’s one of the theories that’s been tossed around in the Cafeteria when you all find yourself at a brief reprieve between cycles. Another popular one is that somehow the ship is trapped at the edge of a wormhole, time dilating and restructuring itself into endless shapes with you all spiralling into madness inside it. You think it’s natural to wonder why you’re trapped like this, fated to have your own body taken to commit atrocities against these people you are so sure were your friends in the first one, or waiting for those same friends to commit them against you. But no matter how you all wonder and speculate, you don’t have much hope that you’ll ever find an answer. 

Underneath the blaring, and if they don’t fix that soon then this will be a painfully short cycle, you hear the distinct sharp sound of metal being moved and slammed back into place. A vent. You wait for a second, but no footsteps seem to be rushing towards you. You carefully peek your head back around into Weapons. The room is washed in the red glow of the emergency lights and for a second your heart stutters in your chest as you catch a glimpse of someone moving out of the other hallway. Red suit. The lights turn back on, the alarm stops screeching. You shake yourself. No. Not a red suit. Red is gone for the rest of this cycle. But the lights dyed the suit close enough to his shade that there are only a few others it could be. Orange, Pink, Yellow, or White. 

You don’t call the meeting. You need to go to admin anyway. The vent in Weapons goes to Navigation you think, and you’re not sure why the killer would then choose to walk right back in the direction of the body. But what you saw is not enough by itself right now. The trio’s alibi has melted away, White has become more suspicious than he was during the first meeting, but it’s not enough for Green or Blue to be willing to vote, and if you start pointing fingers without more proof then it’s just as likely that you’ll end up on the wrong side of a vote. Besides. You’re fairly certain the intruder doesn’t know you caught a glimpse of them. If they did you would already be dead. But you do decide to pay close attention to whoever finds the body. Maybe this creature is playing a riskier game. Maybe they had a reason for heading back down in the direction of the body.

* * *

The report comes through just after you’ve finished swiping your admin card. 

You gather around the table. You, White, Purple, Pink, Orange, Brown, Cyan, Blue, and Lime. Your stomach tightens into a knot. Two kills. 

“I found Yellow in Navigation.” Orange says. Her voice is soft and hoarse. She doesn’t know what happened to her throat anymore, a memory lost to the cycle, but she can barely raise it above a whisper. She says she has a scar on her neck, but you’ve never seen it. You haven’t ever seen any of the others without their helmets on. “I finished inspecting samples and was on my way to do Shields and I saw her laying on the threshold of Nav.” 

“We found Red too,” Purple says, gesturing between himself and Blue. “He was in storage, but we saw him shortly after leaving here the first time but we decided since there was nothing to be done at this point and to just work on our tasks instead.” 

“Has anyone found Green?” You ask hesitantly. You already know the answer. 

“Where was everyone?” Blue asks when everyone just shrugs or shakes their heads. “After Purple and I finished in Storage we went to Electrical, that’s when the reactor went off, we started heading over but someone beat us to it.”

The others sound off. It’s a crapshoot. No one was together aside from Purple and Blue. No one even passed each other in the halls. There’s no grounds for a vote. You try to remember where everyone said they were so that when Green’s body is found you have some idea of who should have been close to it. You’re reasonably sure that Blue is not the monster and as the meeting ends you approach him. 

“I think I saw something in the vents.” 

His back goes rigid. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

You shrug. “It was barely a glimpse and it was when the lights were flashing. Their suit looked red.” You wonder what look you might be getting from the other man under his helmet. “I know it wasn’t, but their suit must have been light. Yellow’s gone. White, Pink, or Orange. White didn’t have an alibi at the first meeting. Yellow was Orange’s and Pink’s, and now she’s dead. There are always two of them, no one’s been voted out yet, it could be any of them.” 

Blue doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “Why tell me?”

You turn and head to the door. You need to get the shields done before anyone else dies. “I don’t think it’s you this time, Cap.” None of you are sure who the captain was at the start of this trip, you all have your own suspicions, but something about the way Blue holds himself has always felt like a leader to you. “I still have a lot of chores to do, so if I get got, I need someone I can trust to know this.” You pause on the threshold. “And if I do die, you’ll know for sure that I’m not lying, Blue.”

* * *

You finish dumping the trash and inspecting samples before you find Blue, torso torn open and gnawed on, in the Cafeteria, barely a yard from the button. You stand alone in the room for a moment, a truly risky thing to do, but you take the time anyway. Because you trusted Blue this time around, and for some reason it always hurts more to discover your trust was well founded, but not enough to save anyone from such a gruesome fate. You call the meeting. 

“I found Green too,” White says. “They were in MedBay.” 

“I was refueling the top engine.” Pink. 

“I was in Electrical.” Cyan. 

“I was in Shields.” Orange. 

“I was in Storage.” Purple. 

“I was in Admin.” Lime. 

“I was in O2.” Brown.

“Orange, you were in Medbay before the last meeting.” You say. 

Her shoulders twist into a tight line. “Yes.” 

“Did you see anyone else near Medbay?” Pink asks, she has her hands crossed carefully on the table, barely lifting the fingers of her right hand up, towards you, ‘ _slow down’_. Maybe Pink was Captain, she has the same even leadership qualities as Blue, but you’ve also seen her with the engines and the reactor and if she’s not an engineer then you’re probably the murderer this cycle. 

“I don’t know, I don’t think so.” 

“Did you go to help with the reactor before you headed to Shields and found Yellow in Navigation?” 

“No.” If possible her voice is even smaller. 

“You didn’t go to help? Medbay is pretty close, you probably would have been one of the first ones there.” 

“No I thought I saw--” 

“So you did see someone?” Purple presses. “You just said you didn’t see anyone.” 

“No, I mean, I didn’t see anyone in Medbay, but I did see shadows heading down the hall to the reactor, so I just went on to do my tasks.” 

“And just to happened to find Yellow.” Cyan adds. 

Orange stops talking. Her hands are in her lap, clenched tightly and shaking. 

“I was in the hall between Weapons and Caf when the reactor went off. I didn’t see you come through.” You could have missed her. She might have come just seconds after you passed between the rooms. “But I caught a glimpse of someone venting into Weapons as I left. Their suit looked red under the lights.” You should have told them all before. Maybe Blue would still be alive. 

“We need to vote.” Purple says. “If there are two of them here then we’re running out of time.” 

No one protests. You cast your votes. Orange doesn’t say anything as the votes are tallied up. There used to be yelling, kicking and screaming, forcibly dragging people to the airlock and a horrible sick feeling for hours after it. But now Orange just nods at the little screen and stands. Walks into the airlock and you stand, you’re the one in black afterall, an executioner's color. You think you hear a faint dry sob over comms as you press the button. The alarm buzzes through the air, shrill and sharp, and still not loud enough to drown out the whoosh of air, and your companion, being lost to the vacuum of space.

* * *

You know you’ve lost this cycle as you step into electrical and the Skeid’s engine rumbles to a complete stop. Not a reactor malfunction, not the life support melting down, but a complete cessation of all movement and sound in the ship. The cycle is over. Most of your crewmates are gone. Now all that’s left is to wait. You sit down across from the vent, lean your head back on the eerily silent mechanical components. Winning a cycle means that whoever is left alive gets a brief respite. A few hours, sometimes days even, though time is nebulous at best, of peace. When you lose, well, it’s still a respite of sorts. But one where the few survivors are usually hunted down and finished off and then you wander in a horrible broken echo of the ship until the next cycle begins. You don’t like dying, it’s never a pleasant experience, but you hate the horrible wrongness of that broken ship more. 

You hate the fact you’re already hoping for another cycle to start soon. 

You wait in electrical for what feels like an eternity. But eventually, you hear something moving below you. What’s worse is the sound of clattering rushing footsteps coming from the hallway. You jolt as you watch Cyan turn into the room and try to warn them that the monster is already here, but before the sound can leave your throat the vent grate is thrown back, slamming into the floor as the shape below erupts into the room. You watch with detached horror as White’s torso peels open at his waist revealing a familiar maw of jagged teeth and a long sharp tongue that darts out like a whip to catch Cyan’s arm and drag them off balance. The teeth close over their head, helmet and all, with a wet crunch. A thick splatter hits your suit, pittering against the fabric. White drops their body to the ground and straightens up. The teeth seal back together. The maw gone. He turns to look at you. But you don’t bother to stand. These creatures are fast. Even without the vents you don’t think any of you could outrun them. 

“It was you in the vent, not Orange?” White doesn’t move. They’re standing too still. Inhuman. Unnatural. Your mind screams at you. How could you have missed it before?

“She wasn’t very good at defending herself this time, was she?” You all agreed to not bring up events of past cycles in the next ones. It only serves to muddy the waters and make your lives harder. But you would like to apologize to her, you won’t, but you want to. 

“Who was your partner?” White just tilts his head. Fair enough. If their strategy worked this time then it could work again. “You said ‘this time’, are all of the imposters the same entity in different bodies each time?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had you alone after a cycle before, are you always this inquisitive?” 

“I don’t make it to the end of very many cycles.” You don’t. You’d think after your first ten dozen times being killed because you were by yourself you’d have learned your lesson, but you haven’t. “And the other ones always are more eager to kill than to chat.” 

White considers this, tilting his head very slowly to the side. Considering. “You have your colors, we have ours.” 

“Did you trap us here?”

“No.” White moves closer. A cold sweat starts to prickle across the back of your neck. Your mouth is dry as he kneels down in front of you. 

“How do you keep the blood off of you?” 

“Practice. Let me show you.” 

You watch as the glass visor splits open where it joins to the hard plastic, revealing a leech-like mouth of teeth. You close your eyes, breath caught in the back of your throat.

And then you are on the broken ship again. The wrongness of this place slides too eagerly across your skin. And all you can do is wait and hope the next cycle comes quickly.

* * *

The cycles continue. You think maybe seven pass. But you’re not sure. The fact of the matter is you spend a long time in the broken ship and you think that means the imposter you, the monster who wears black, spends some time with your crewmates. No one tells you one way or the other. And of the cycles you are in you and your crewmates only manage to stop the creatures twice. Maybe everyone else is feeling as tired as you. 

But you did manage to beat the last one. Green was on their game, camping Security and working with Red to seed false information among the imposters. It was a teamup you weren’t expecting, but the effectiveness of it was beyond reproach. With only Cyan’s death and two swift meetings and airlock ejections of Pink and Brown respectively, the cycle ended. Your tasks autocomplete, and you are all left to your own devices. 

Everyone splits off after that. Maybe the fact that you’re frequently accusing or actually murdering one another has discouraged you all from spending any significant amount of free time together. You make your way straight back to your small room, it’s hardly more than a closet really, just large enough for your bunk and a place to hang your suit. There’s a picture taped to the wall. It’s of a rickety tree house enveloped by a lush pine forest. You don’t remember taking it or why it was significant enough to bring with you on this trip. You hang your suit, left in a plain black tee shirt and black sweats. Everything not welded down in your bunk is black, the thin sheets and blanket, your pillow, even the tape sticking that single picture to the wall. You wonder if it was always like this or if this is something the strangeness that keeps you here has deliberately done to reduce you all to nothing more than a color and a pile of tasks. 

You drop to your bunk. How long has it been since you slept last? Ate? A long time you think. But you can’t seem to starve to death now, so sleep comes first.

* * *

You wake with a jolt to a sharp rap against your door. The sound clangs and echoes around your bunk and as you sit up you immediately yank your suit from its hook. 

“Give me a second!” You call at the door. You haven’t seen any of them without their suits. You don’t want them to see you either. It would be harder to throw someone out the airlock if you knew what their faces looked like, and that’s not a safe hang up to have here. You pull your helmet on and immediately the HUD lights up with your task list. Your stomach sinks. That wasn’t a very long break between cycles. You trudge over to the door and it opens with a hiss. 

White is standing on the other side, a few steps back, watching you exit with his head tilted slightly to the side. “I have to go to Weapons.” 

“I need to do Shields and Nav.” You would normally head there by yourself, but he’s already here and you’re a little grateful he bothered to come find you before one of the imposters snuck into your room and slit your throat. You fall into step beside him and you walk in silence through the halls. The personal quarters are on a separate level from the main areas and you don’t pass anyone else as you make your way up. The stairwell will let you out down near Electrical. You’re not even halfway up the flight before the lights go out. White’s footsteps stop beside you. “We’re about twenty steps from the top.” You say and keep trudging forward. Hopefully the others get the lights back on soon. White’s footsteps start back up. 

“You know your way around in the dark?” 

“They always kill the lights, it seemed like a good thing to learn.” Step. Step. Step. White doesn’t say anything for another eight steps, the movement a smooth easy metronome in the dark. 

“You said you don’t make it to the end of most cycles, but you’ve put more thought into this than a fair few of the others.” 

“You’re not giving them enough credit, all we do is think about how to survive each cycle as long as possible--” the wrongness of the statement sinks in as you step out into the hallway. The lights are still off. “Oh.” White stops a few steps behind you. “You again, huh?”

“Me again.” The creature agrees. 

“You woke me up just to kill me?” You’re not sure if you’re annoyed or amused. 

It feels a little petty. 

“We had another chat too.” He offers very diplomatically. 

“Right.” There is no way you can run all the way to the cafeteria to call the emergency meeting. But maybe you can keep him talking, long enough for the lights to come back on. If nothing else that will make it harder for him to make a clean getaway. “Do you have these chats with my crewmates?” 

“No, none of them have ever seemed much for conversation after realizing what I am.” 

“Can I ask? About what that is exactly? I don’t think I believed in this level of sentient extraterrestrial life before I boarded the Skeld.”

White doesn’t say anything for a long time and you wonder if you could have possibly offended him. It seems like a stretch and considering he’s definitely going to be killing you in the next few minutes you don’t feel guilty about it. “I’d hazard a guess that you don’t remember much about who you were before you were Black.” Your silence answers his question more than your words could. “It’s the same for myself and the ones I’ve worked with.” 

You start to hear a faint hum in the fluorescents overhead. The lights are going to be back on in a few seconds. “Do you know what’s keeping us here?” 

You jolt when White’s hands grab onto your arms, his grip like steel and you think you can feel sharp claws pricking your skin through the fabric of your suit. “Thank you for the chat, and the meal.” You hear the sound of his suit tearing open and the brief flash of agony as his teeth rip through your flesh, and then you are alone on the broken ship again.

* * *

You might be a little paranoid after that. You might follow White around probably a bit more than is necessarily normal. But in your defense, 

“I talked to the White imposter in a couple of the cycles--” well it turns out that’s not a good defense. Because apparently breaking the ‘no talking about the other cycles’ rule and also the idea you’ve had any level of communication with one of these creatures does not sit well with your crewmates. 

You walk into the airlock with your head held high. When you turn to see who will be hitting the button to seal your fate it feels like a universal ‘fuck you’ to see your crewmate White has decided to take up that job.

* * *

The next cycle you think the others are still holding grudges. You don’t know what happened after you were ejected, but it must have been bad. No one sticks together as they leave Caf to do their tasks and every time you see anyone pass one another in the halls they all but bolt past each other. If this is the level of cooperation you’re going to have this cycle you all don’t have a chance in hell of making it through this. 

It’s not a surprise when the meeting is called and you find that not one of your crewmates but three of them are already dead. Lime, Green, and Orange are glaringly absent from the table.

“Red you called in the body, where was it?” Blue asks. 

“No,” Red snarls, standing with his hands planted on the table. “Everyone says exactly where they were before I called this in first.” 

There’s a distinct pause but eventually Blue sighs and says, “I started off in Admin before heading down to Communication to download some files.”

“I was back and forth between storage and the upper and lower engines refueling.” Pink adds. 

“I was in Nav plotting course.” Brown. 

“I was in Weapons dealing with the asteroids.” Yellow. 

“I was emptying trash in Caf and in Storage.” Cyan

“In electrical calibrating the distributor.” Purple.

“Medbay, testing samples, went to Admin to swipe my card before heading back to pull the results.” You say and Red’s visor locks on you. 

“It’s Black.” 

Your chest shudders with cold. “What, no, why?” 

“I found Lime’s body laying in the hallway between Medbay and Caf, there’s no way you walked back and forth through there multiple times and didn’t notice it.” 

“There wasn’t a body in the hall when I went through, it must have happened--” 

“It’s Black. I’m voting.” Red snarls. 

“Wait,” White says, and you are grateful to see it stall your already hesitant crewmates. “Where were you Red?” 

“I was making my way up from Security to Nav, but that doesn’t matter because it’s fucking Black.” 

“No you weren’t.” Pink says with steel in her voice. “I was refueling, I went up and down that hallway twice, and I didn’t see you in security once.” 

“Pink’s lying. She’s trying to protect Black. She’s the second imposter. Vote Black then vote Pink.” 

“I’m not voting for either of them based on this.” White says flatly. 

“We don’t even know where the other bodies are.” Blue adds. “We have no idea where else the killers were before this meeting.” 

“You’re all useless, you’re just going to sit there and let them keep killing us when you have a chance to stop them!” Red snarls. 

“Jumping to conclusions just kills us faster.” Purple’s tone is flat and cold. He skips his vote and stands. The rest of the table does the same. 

“We’re all going to be fucking dead before we find the next body.” Red promises, standing and storming off towards Navigation.

* * *

It’s not quite all of you, but when you call the next meeting, having found Cyan in a puddle of their own gore and blood in Storage it still feels pretty horrible. 

“He was standing over two bodies, can we vote him now!?” Red all but screeches. 

“Sit down, Red.” Blue snaps. You swallow hard, you never hear Blue lose his temper. “Black, can you explain this?” 

“I finished clearing oxygen filters and I needed to go down to electrical and rewire, I found Cyan when I walked in and reported immediately.” 

“I was right behind him when he walked into storage.” Pinks says. “I was with you, Blue, in Navigation downloading files and I needed to go upload them in Admin. I finished in there and walked down the hall to see Black just ahead of me, he opened the door and called the meeting.” 

“She’s covering for him again!” 

“Even if she were, she’s not lying. I heard someone walk past Navigation while we were both in there, then Pink’s files finished and she packed up. She left and I heard her walk a few yards down the hall before the meeting was called. The timeline is too tight. There’s no way Black could have done it in that amount of time.” 

“You’ve been pointing a lot of fingers Red.” Brown says. “And they keep being at the only people who have a solid alibi. “Where were you this time? Because I was with Yellow in the reactor. Pink was with Blue.” 

“I passed White in Navigation when I was going to Storage.” You offer. 

“Did anyone see Red at all this round?” Pink asks. The silence around the table is a damnation. “Last round?” 

“You’re all idiots.” But Red sounds tired. “It’s Black and Pink, and they’re going to kill you all because you let them lie to you.” 

You know you’re not the imposter. You can’t say anything about any of the others. But you know that you’re not one of them. You cast your vote. 

Red watches the tally come in. “Not Pink or Black. I want one of you to do it, not one of them. I want you all to know that you’re the ones killing me, you don’t get to wipe this blood off on them.” 

You hear Blue sigh under their helmet. Last cycle must have been bad. You’re glad you weren’t around for it. “I”ll do it. Is that good enough for you, Red?” 

The other man doesn’t answer, just stomps over to the airlock and slams his hand on the button to get inside. Blue follows at a much slower pace. He doesn’t say anything else and Red does not turn to face you all again, and after a long moment Blue finally gathers the energy to reach up and hit the button. Red is ejected with the same siren buzz and rush of air that you’ve all heard before. 

After another handful of seconds Blue says, “Finish your goddamn tasks.”

* * *

The reactor is going to melt down. Great. That’s really wonderful. Almost as wonderful as the power surge that blasts through the wires when you connect the wrong two, started by the sudden blaring of the sirens. A shocked, pained shout crawls up the back of your throat as you realize that the electricity was strong enough to have melted the tips of your gloves to your fingertips. Fuck. It hurts, but you have pretty thick calluses on your hands, you don’t know what they’re from or why they haven’t gone away after all this time in the Skeld, but it’s definitely not as bad as it could be. You’re lucky that the insolation took care of most of the power. You’ll still need first aid though. If the ship doesn’t blow up in the meantime. 

You don’t know if the scanner will be able to read your melted glove but you head up towards the reactor. But as you turn into the hall the screeching and flashing lights stop and you spot Brown and Pink making their way back down towards you. 

“We got it!” Pink says chipperly. 

“I have to go prime the shields.” Brown. 

“I got burned in Electrical,” you reply, holding up your hands. “I’m gonna go up to Medbay and then I’ll finish with wiring.” 

“We’re almost done.” And there’s such relief in Pink’s voice that you actually feel the same knot of tension starting to loosen in your own chest. 

“Almost,” you agree. 

“Let’s get this done.” Brown says, she pats your shoulder as she moves past you. 

You’re halfway through the upper engine before the body is reported. 

Blue is absent from the table when you walk in. 

“He was in Nav.” Brown says, and the cautious optimism of a few minutes ago is just a distant memory. “Pink finished her tasks before the reactor went off and was accompanying me. We saw White in Security when the reactor went off but we handled it and asked him to keep an eye on the cameras in case anyone tried anything while we were stabilizing it.” 

“I poked my head in when we were done and he was still there.” Pink adds. “Then we were going to Nav and ran into Black.”

“I was going for the reactor, saw Pink and Brown, and then was headed to medbay because I burned my hands when I fucked up in electrical.” You hold up your slightly melted gloves as proof. You didn’t see White, but you hadn’t even looked in Security. 

“I was in the cafeteria with Blue for a while at the start,” Purple says. “But my download was taking a while. Yellow walked through and talked with us for a minute before heading towards Shields, and Blue left shortly after to go to Nav. I finished my downloads and ran back into Yellow in Weapons before the meeting was called.” 

“I came in and talked to Purple and Blue before the reactor went off and I was going to come help with it, but you guys turned it off really fast.” Yellow’s voice is fast and nervous. “I needed to do an asteroid sweep but I was scared that someone would sneak up on me so I went to try and find someone to watch me while I did it. I thought Blue said he was going to Shields so I went to find him but he wasn’t there and then I headed back up, I was hoping Purple would still be in the Cafeteria. But the meeting got called.”

“Didn’t you already clear asteroids as your first task?” Pink asks slowly. 

“I did, I didn’t finish before the first meeting was called!” She answers rapidly, sitting up and leaning forward slightly. “I was going to finish it, it was my last task.” 

“Why didn’t you finish it after you were interrupted the first time?” Purple. 

“It takes a long time, I just wanted to get as much done as possible.” 

“You weren’t in the room when Blue said where he was going.” 

Yellow’s voice pitches higher. “He told me when he passed through to go down to Navigation.” 

“If you were already nervous why didn’t you ask him to stay with you then?” Pink presses.  
“I, I,--” Yellow bursts into a sob. You’re tired. You vote. The others follow suit. She’s still sobbing when the airlock seals behind her. 

You all wait for a long moment, wait with your breath held to see if the tasks on your helmets disappear. But after a few seconds you all slump under the weight of your mistake. 

“Treat your hands.” Purple tells you. “I’ve just got to upload these and then I’ll finish the rewiring in electrical.” He reaches for your arm and you let him, grasping his forearm as he connects the wires attached to the panel built into your sleeve. You transfer over your last task. 

“I’ll finish in Navigation and then that will be it.” 

“Maybe we should all stick together, make it harder for them.” Pink suggests. 

“We’re better off trying to get these last three tasks done as fast as possible. Purple you shouldn’t stack, which one do you want to keep?” White says reaching for Purple’s arm next. Purple hesitates. 

“There’s only one thing to fix in electrical. I can finish it quick and come watch your back in Admin.” 

“That’s fine.” White hooks up the wires and you all wait out the transfer. But once it’s done you all stand for another few seconds. 

“I’m going to go to security and keep an eye on things. If you guys wait for a minute before leaving then I’ll be able to keep an eye on everyone through the cameras.” Pink says.

“Okay.” 

You all wait for one long painful moment. Brown, Pink, White, Purple. One of them at least. It could be two. If it’s two then all they need to do is kill one of you and the cycle will be lost. Brown breaks away first. Purple and White move next, both heading down the southern hallway. You head to medical. You’ve only just crossed the threshold when the ship goes dark. It’s been a bad cycle, it’s been a long time since you got any rest. You’re glad no one is around to hear the frustrated sound that tears out of your throat as you slam your fist into the doorframe. No point in patching your hands now then. You throw yourself onto one of the cots and wait. 

Nothing comes for you immediately and the anger is starting to settle in you, making way for a sense of desolation and hopelessness. It reminds you too much of that ghastly broken ship. You’re only there for a few minutes before White appears in the doorway. You sit up a little. He doesn’t immediately enter the room and he doesn’t seem to be frantically running from a monster so you wager a guess, 

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” It barely gets an amused huff out of him but he does enter the room. Even without power the door slides shut behind him and erases any doubts you had. 

“You haven’t patched your hands.” 

“Isn’t much of a point really.” You shrug. “Besides, I don’t think I can open the cabinets without power.” 

White moves over to the supply cabinets, the key card scanner is powered down and gray. Keeping track of supplies is important, you know that instinctively, there’s only room for so much on the ship and people can’t be flippant or wasteful with what you have. You know that, it’s something left over in your mind from your training like how you know how to complete your tasks. But you also know that type of thing doesn’t matter anymore. You should have run out of fuel a hundred times over in these cycles. But you never do. There are always rations in the cafeteria, always new garbage in the chutes. There will always be new medical supplies if someone else needs them. That knowledge doesn’t keep you from flinching when White curls his hand over the card reader and lock and squeezes. The sound of the metal and plastic shattering in his grip sends a chill down your spine. But he just drops the handful of parts to the ground and rummages in the cabinet for a moment. If the door wasn’t shut you’d consider making a run for it. If for no other reason than to make this a bit harder on him. It’s really not fair that the last two times he’s killed you he got it done so easily. 

“Move your legs.” He says as he approaches the cot. You pull them in, half worried he’ll rip them off with that monstrous strength if you don’t. He drops down onto the cot beside you and sets a roll of bandage and a small tube of ointment beside it. 

“I’m not going to bother.” You tell him. “You’re just going to eat me again anyway.” 

“Not this time.” He reaches for your right hand and you let him take it. 

“Why not?” 

“My partner this time isn’t the biggest fan of my methods. She’ll be upset if I keep killing now that the cycle is over.” White reaches for the place where your glove meets your suit and hesitates. Waits for you to stop him, and you are tempted to. You’ve never taken any part of your suit off in front of your crewmates. But White isn’t that. He’s not going to have any qualms about seeing how human you are under the suit, it’s not going to make him hesitate to kill you or eject you out of the airlock. When you make no protest he peels the glove away, carefully loosening it around your burned thumb, index, and middle fingers. The burns aren’t that bad really, shiny and red, a slight blister on one finger, but otherwise definitely not too bad. 

“So you’re just going to, what? Hang out until the start of the next one?” 

He gives a scant shrug as he uncaps the ointment, a thick semi transparent gel, that he squeezes onto your burned fingers. “We need rest too.” 

“Do you though? I feel tired, but I don’t know if I need to sleep anymore.” As you wait for his response you finally take note of the strange texture of his gloves. Not thick rubber-coated cloth like yours, but cool… skin? It feels smooth at points and rough in other places as his touch moves against your arm. So it’s not a monster in a suit. The suit is part of it. 

“I don’t know, Black, that seems pretty strange. Inhuman even.” 

You sniff as he finishes sealing the ointment in with a quick wrap of gauze. “You’re not funny.” 

“Maybe our senses of humor are just ill-matched. Other hand.” You switch hands without protest. The gel is cool against your fingertips and it feels better than you thought it would. He takes this glove off with the same careful movements and you realize the deliberateness is for your sake, not just to keep from damaging your skin further, but to keep from scaring you off. Like you’re a frightened animal. “I don’t know.” You blink at him. He can’t see it behind your visor, but he goes on as if he could. Maybe he can? You don’t know what he’s capable of beyond cold blooded murder. “If we need to sleep, but we do feel tired. We’ve been here as long as you all. I’m sure you feel it too.” He reaches for the ointment again. “My partner wants to test her theory, see if we leave as many of you alive as we can and are able to get a longer reprieve between iterations in return.” 

“And you’re interested in finding out? More interested in that than eating me and my other crewmate?” 

You hear the smile in his voice when he replies. “I made sure to eat my fill before we won. After All, no one ever did find Orange or Green.” Your stomach rolls and you pull your hand away from his. He doesn’t reach for you again and neither of you speak for a long time. 

“If we’re going to keep doing this, having conversations, I can’t listen to you brag about your kills. I don’t care if you talk about killing me, and I know what you are, but that doesn’t mean you have to rub it in my face. These people were my friends at one point,” you think, “they’re not just meals on legs for you.” 

White considers this for a moment. “Alright. Now let me finish your hand.” 

You carefully extend your hand again. His skin is cool against yours.

* * *

You don’t end up leaving Medbay, half because asking for him to open the door for you feels strange, but mostly because you don’t want to go walking around and potentially stumble on the other imposter or survivor. You’re tired and the thought of talking to anyone else is too much. 

“I’m going to sleep.” Sleeping in your full suit won’t be comfortable, but uncomfortable sleep is better than no sleep at all. “I’d be grateful if you’d give me a couple of hours before killing me.” 

“I’ll try to resist the temptation.” He says in a tone so dry it almost makes you smile. He moves off of your cot to the one across from it and sits back down, back against the wall and legs crossed at the ankles. He looks so unperturbed, so strangely normal. And like he’s going to watch you as you drift off. You lay back on the cot. That should definitely be more off-putting than it feels now. But right now you’re exhausted and if the monster wants to watch you from across the room instead of from under the bed or in a vent then that’s just something you’re going to have to make peace with. You make your peace with it very quickly, eyes too heavy and mind too exhausted to hold off sleep any longer. 

* * *

You’re not sure how long it is before you wake, but your mouth is thick and your eyes bleary in a way that only comes from a long deep sleep. There’s a horrible crick in your neck from sleeping with your helmet on but otherwise you feel pretty good. Your mind sharpening up much faster than it did last time you were unceremoniously awakened. You sit up and try to blink the sleep from your eyes, gaze flicking to the side of your visor. No task list lights up. You look out across the darkened room and see the shape of White still on the cot. No new cycle then. You swing your legs over the side of the cot. How many cycles ago was it you said you would eat if you ever got an actual nap in? At least two, probably more. You half cock your head towards White to ask him to open the doors before you realize he hasn’t moved at all since you started shifting around. 

Hesitantly, you take a few steps closer. He doesn’t move. You creep up to the edge of the bed. He doesn’t move. Thank god the doors are closed and you’re outside of a cycle because standing silently over the body of your sleeping crewmate would definitely look pretty suspicious. But this isn’t your crewmate and you can’t help but be curious. You run a visual check, looking for any marks, any blemishes, any inconsistencies in White’s suit. Anything that might give him away in the next cycle. You peer at his waist and under the edge of his visor, where you know two mouths are, but you don’t find any obvious indicators of their existence. You even tentatively raise your hand to the visor, letting it hover just an inch or so away from the glass. If the suit is part of this creature's skin you were hoping maybe to be able to feel its breath, but no such luck. 

You take half a step back and suck in a startled breath when something clips the back of your calf. You glance down to see the supply cabinet’s door still hanging open from earlier. The creature on the bed still hasn’t moved. An oily thought slides through your mind. No one has ever tried to fight back against these creatures. No one has ever been given much of an opportunity. More often than not you’re dead before you even fully realize what’s happening. Certainly no one has ever had a weapon before. You crouch down slowly and reach into the cabinet. Everything is in neat organized rows. You slip a scalpel, packed in sterile yellow plastic, from its stack and slip it into your sleeve. Item number 021 for this cabinet. You don’t trust yourself to be able to unwrap it quietly here. And it feels… rude to try and kill White in his sleep outside of a cycle. Afterall, he had at least shown you the courtesy of waking you up before killing you. You push the scalpel as far up your sleeve as you can, worried the sound of your zippered pockets will be too loud in the silent room, before getting back to your feet. The doors are still closed. 

You reach for White’s shoulder, “hey can you--!”

Your back hits the ground, helmet hitting the floor with a loud crack that makes your ears ring as your skull connects with the inside a split second later. The wind rushes from your lungs as your body is crushed by a considerable weight pinning you to the floor and as the black spots clear from your vision you throw your hands out in front of you, a weak defense but an instinctual one, as you catch sight of that leech-like mouth again, open wide and hissing, long tongue whipping through the air. 

“Don’t!” It’s barely a protest but it’s all you can think of, pressing hard into the floor as if somehow you’ll manage to get further away from that horrifying maw. But the tongue slows, flicking out over where your helmet meets your suit, and then retracts, the visor slips shut again. 

“Black?” 

“Yeah, yeah it’s just me.” You can’t keep the shake out of your voice, heart still pounding against your ribs as this monster that looks like your crewmate holds you against the floor. 

White leans back, shifting so his weight is mostly over your legs. His helmet slowly swivels around the room. “I… didn’t intend to fall asleep here.” 

“Well, you did.” You mutter, forcing yourself up, the back of your head starting to throb as well as, “Fuck, were the claws really necessary?” The shoulder of your suit is torn and you can feel blood seeping sluggishly into your shirt. White reaches for you again and you can’t help flinching away. His hand hovers in the air for a second and when you don’t move any further he reaches again and flicks part of the shredded fabric to the side. He leans forward to look at his handiwork. 

“Hmm. It’s not deep, that’s lucky. I’m surprised I didn’t tear it off.” 

“Great. Well that’s sufficiently horrifying, could you get off me and open the fucking doors, please?” You yelp again as the visor opens, just a bit and that long thin tongue flicks out again, passing quickly over your bleeding skin. No, no, absolutely not. You reach up and plant both hands against the visor, it feels like glass under your palms, but you know it’s not, and give him a hard push. He doesn’t move for a second, and then, you feel him decide to let you shove him away. You stand up as soon as he’s off of you and storm towards the door. 

“Black,”

“Nope. No. Don’t talk to me. Open the door.” 

“Black, your shoulder--”

“Will be fine as soon as I’m away from you and your freaky tongue. Doors.” You don’t turn to look at him, staring straight through the doors. The silence stretches out between you for thirty long and terrifying seconds. Then the doors whoosh open and you swiftly make your way towards the Cafeteria. Rations packet and then straight to your room. No more interacting with monsters until the next cycle. You ignore the throb of your shoulder and the heat radiating along your spine.

* * *

You get another few hours before the next cycle starts. When it does your shoulder, fingers, and suit are repaired. The scalpel stays securely in your pouch. You also die as soon as you walk into Comm.

* * *

You don’t see Imposter-White for a while. You think you can kind of tell him apart from the normal White, if only because the normal White doesn’t give you the time of day and has maybe started to actively avoid you after that first incident of following him around. Which is fair, but does seem a little petty, so maybe both your crewmate White and the Imposter are both a little petty. You wonder what your imposter counterpart is like. Since Medbay you think there have been around fourteen cycles, though you don’t know how many, if any, the imposter you has been present for so that number could be a fair bit higher. Still you all have gotten back in better sync. You’ve actually won a few of the cycles, three in a row that you’ve been around for and with minimal deaths each time. It’s definitely got you all in higher spirits. 

Which is maybe why it takes you a bit longer than usual to notice you’re being followed. You make your way into Electrical as the lights go out. No one was inside when you first walked in and you hesitate in the front of the room, straining your ears to listen for any possible movement in the vents. But after a few seconds the lights flick back on and you are still blissfully alone in the room. You make your way over to divert power to Admin. You half turn towards the door when you hear someone else walk in. White doesn’t acknowledge you as he removes the panel to adjust the wiring. 

He’s there for longer than he needs to be. Because he’s still there when you’re finally done and ready to head up to Admin to finish the task. You walk very calmly out of the room and through storage. You strain your ears again and hear White’s footsteps a bit behind you. You turn into Storage and dart for the hall leading up to Caf, shoving a hand deep into your pocket and pulling out the scalpel and palming it. The door shuts before you can get out. 

“Last taste wasn’t enough?” You’re kind of proud how little your voice shakes even with your imminent death approaching. 

“‘Fraid not.” White drawls, walking towards you. You turn to face him, angling to keep the knife out of his sight. “No hard feelings I hope?” 

“Right.” You hate that you kind of understand the sentiment. If he’s telling the truth, and that’s a big if, about the monsters being trapped just like you and your crewmates are, well then it’s no more his fault for having to kill than it’s yours for having to try and eject him. 

“I’d appreciate it if you held still for me.” He purrs, stepping right into your space, you see the visor start to open. Your hand shakes. You hold your breath. Wait to see some kind of soft pink gum around the edge of this mouth, and lunge. The scalpel sinks deep and true into the flesh. White reels back with an inhuman screech, dark purple blood splattering across your suit and his as he tears the blade from his mouth before the visor snaps shut and he reaches up to press his hands against it. “Fuck! Black what the hell?!” In his shock he must lose control over the locks. The door slides open behind you and you bolt. 

“Black?” You barely register passing Brown as she turns out of Admin. 

“Run!” The warning doesn’t come fast enough. You hear her--

“Whit--” Before there’s a sickening tearing sound, a thick wet splatter, and two solid thumps as White’s footsteps roar behind you. 

His fingers wrap around your arm right as your other one slams down onto the emergency meeting button. He drags you back and your heart jackrabbits in your chest as you stare into his visor. He’s covered in blood, his own and Brown’s, it’s dripping down his face. Your own visor is reflected in his and somehow even you can see your terror in the shiny black surface. 

“White!” Pink says as she enters the room with Blue and Red. “Let go of him! You know the rules!” You’ve never heard her speak with that kind of cold authority before. White’s grip tightens around your arm. You always thought it would be her or Blue as captain, but this is different. This is not that same tone. This is like someone wrangling a rabid animal with all the confidence that they can do it without being bitten. 

White keeps holding onto you for another long minute. He doesn’t speak. 

“What the hell happened?” Red asks, somehow still managing to sound angry under his surprise. 

“I got sloppy this time.” White finally says. There’s no lying his way out of this one. Not when he’s dripping with blood. He still hasn’t let go of your arm. 

“White,” Pink says again, warning in her tone. 

“Just vote already.” Your crewmates dutifully cast their ballots. White doesn’t look at the screen as it displays his fate, just leans in even closer and hisses, “Come on, Black. You get to push the button.” 

“No.” Pink says and you see her stand out of the corner of your eye. She stands up and rounds the table, grabs White by the shoulder and pulls him away. His grip tightens, pressure strong enough to leave a bruise, but his claws are kept carefully away from your skin, and then he finally lets go. Pink steers him over to the airlock and you sink into your seat at the table. Your legs shaking and the blood pounding in your ears. You don’t look up as White is ejected. The meeting ends and Blue approaches you silently. You wave him off, head in your hands. Slowly but surely the others trickle out from the room. Except one. 

“He said you weren’t a fan of his methods.” 

“They’re a bit violent for my tastes.” Pink agrees. “It’s a lot easier to let you kill yourselves. But he’s usually not thinking with his brain.” She sits down next to you. You wonder if she’ll break her own rules to make sure you can report her. Instead she moves so you can see her hand even though you haven’t looked up. The bloody scalpel rests in her palm, purple blood settled into the item number etched into the handle. “He wanted you to have this back.” 

“Why?” The noise that leaves your throat hardly even sounds like your voice. 

Pink shrugs. “You’re the first one to try something like this. I think you just succeeded in making him even more obsessed with you.” 

You don’t know quite what to do with that, so you’re grateful that she stands and leaves after another moment. You tuck the scalpel back into your pocket pouch. 

When you call the next meeting, even with no one else dead, and drone, 

“It’s Pink.” With the conviction of a man standing at the gallows you’re a little surprised and heartened when no one argues with you. The votes come in. 

“Walk me out.” Pink says, hooking her arm under yours. You oblige her. She doesn’t make a sound as the airlock shoots her into space.

* * *

Pink is the imposter in the next one too. You don’t know how you know it, but as soon as she starts talking in the meeting you know. But the evidence she lays out against Blue is solid. If you abstain you’ll be next. You make the vote and hate yourself for it. She knows you know too. Because as soon as the meeting is over she follows you. 

“How about we do out tasks together, Black?” 

“What tasks?” 

She laughs, her voice is rich and full. It’s such a good laugh, you think you’d be charmed if you didn’t know she just made you all murder your crewmate. She hooks her arm under yours again. “If nothing else I’ll save you from a bloody death this time around.” 

“Thanks for that.” You reply dryly as you walk with her to Communications. She watches you doing your tasks. “Why are you sticking with me?”

“So I can blame you if anything goes wrong.” 

“Right.” 

“And White said you’ve got a lot going on in that noggin.” She wraps her knuckles against her helmet. 

“How much do you all talk to each other?” 

“See that’s what he said, you always have questions. I bet you and Green would get on like the Skeld in meltdown!” 

“Your Green?”

“You don’t get along with this one?” 

“So Green isn’t the other imposter this cycle?” You shoot back, finally turning away from your tasks to look at her. She’s leaning against the wall by the door and you get the sense that she’s beaming at you, delighted by this back and forth. You sigh and shrug. “I haven’t gotten to talk to many of the others. We have our jobs. It’s not smart to talk to you all. It muddies the waters.” 

“I don’t think so.” Pink says, but the flippant tone is gone. “Like you said we all have our jobs here. I don’t think we can actively not do them. I think whatever is keeping us here wouldn’t take kindly to that. But as long as things are being finished, as long as we keep playing this game the way they want us to, then I think we’re free to do whatever we want in the interim.” 

“And you’re already used to killing us. I don’t know how capable I am of killing you if I know you have a personality under there.” 

“Given that stunt you pulled with the knife I think you’re more than capable of it.” You had a couple of hours between that cycle and this one, but not many. Your stomach twists itself into a knot. It does that every time you think of the slick slide of the blade, the slight elasticity of White’s flesh before the metal sunk in deep and true, the strange brackish purple of the creature’s blood as it splattered over both of your suits. Pink must sense something wrong with you because she shifts a bit, almost uncomfortable. “Whoa, hey, it’s okay. I was impressed, White was too, I mean in hindsight, in the moment I mean you did just stab him. But he’s not angry.”

“Why would I care if he is or isn’t?” But the words feel hollow. 

“I don’t know,” she replies. “But you clearly feel some kind of way about the whole thing.” 

“I have to go to Admin.” You say after a moment. 

“I think you should go to Weapons instead.” She responds sagely. 

“Okay.” 

You go to Weapons with her. The meeting is called shortly after. Lime’s body in Admin found by Cyan. You try to tell the others that she was stalking you trying to get a kill but Green was on cams. They saw you walking with her peacefully and Pink turns her betrayed visor on you. Orange presses the button after you’re voted out.

* * *

You stay in the broken ship for a very long time after that. You’re not sure what that means exactly. But when you finally wake up back on the Skeld, the real Skeld, the relief that floods through you is almost enough to make you dizzy. You take to your tasks with an almost frantic energy. You gather up any stragglers you find around, first collecting Yellow, then Cyan, and eventually a reluctant Purple. Green calls a meeting after half an hour to check in. No one is dead yet. 

You finish your tasks before the next meeting and keep with the group to insure they’re finishing theirs as well. Red is camping the cams and this time calls the meeting when he spots your little group clumped up waiting for Yellow to finish starting the reactor. Apparently actually getting shit done is suspicious now. You’re almost manic as you tell him to transfer his tasks to you. If he’s just going to sit around doing nothing then he can at least give the rest of you a fighting chance. Blue makes you sit back down, but no one protests as Red splits his tasks between you and Yellow. 

You finish the cycle in record time. 

It’s only after everyone reconveens back in the Cafeteria once the tasks lists have been dismissed on your helmets, that you realize something. No one died. No one was ejected. All twelve of you are still here. Which means that until the next cycle starts there are still two imposters among you. 

Fuck.

* * *

The lot of you stay in the Cafeteria for about an hour. Sitting around the table unspeaking. It feels strange, for all of you to hold on to the unspoken hope that the next cycle starts soon. Red is practically twitching, fingers tapping rapidly against the table and the sound is driving you insane. You’re surprised that one of the imposters hasn’t ripped his arm off yet. 

Purple suddenly moves and all of your heads swivel to look at him. “Look they can’t kill us until the next cycle. I’m not going to sit around here until it starts.” He tilts his head sharply as if cracking his neck. “I’m going to go get something to eat, if you’re all still sitting here when I get back then you’re somehow even more paranoid than I thought.” You all watch him cross the room back into the kitchen. No one speaks until you can’t hear him rustling around any more. 

“He’s right. This isn’t the first time we’ve had impostors on the ship for an extended period between cycles.” Green says. “It’s strange, but it shouldn’t be actively dangerous. Keep your helmets on to see when the next cycle starts.” They push away from the table and stand. Pink and Cyan visibly deflate, the tension leaving them with a sigh. 

“I’m going to Nav.” Orange says getting to her feet. “There’s some rewiring that needs to be done in the console that we never get to do during cycles.” 

“Do you want some help?” Pink asks. 

“Sure.” You’re pretty sure that isn’t Imposter-Pink. She never seems interested in actually getting her hands dirty, and that includes in the wires and grease of the ship. 

“Medbay.” Green chirps as they start towards the door. 

“Are you okay?” Cyan asks, also getting to their feet. 

Green waves them off. “I just have my own set of experiments I’d like to run.” 

Red huffs, “nerd,” before making his own exit, headed in the direction of Admin. You and Blue both stand to follow him, Brown, Lime, White, and Yellow left to make their own way through the ship. Blue and Red both turn off to do whatever in Admin while you head down to the bunks.

You throw your suit into the corner of your room, but keep your helmet on as you flop onto your bunk. You’re not particularly tired, not hungry, and clearly no one is craving any kind of socialization with you at the moment, which is fair. So you’re left to your favorite pastime; staring at the small picture on your wall. 

The treehouse sits passively in the thick forest. The pines are still and dark, obscuring the skyline with the gentle rise and fall of them in a seemingly endless expanse stretching out in the background of the photo. The treehouse is still old and weathered, not falling apart from what you can tell, but definitely not new. Was it from your childhood? Did you or someone you know make it? Maybe you were hiking, did you hike? And just stumbled across it and thought it was cool. No, why would you just bring a picture that you thought was cool on this trip with you? It had to have been important to you at one point. But try as you might to piece together some kind of meaning in the picture, nothing comes. 

You’re so deep in thought that when your door slides open you don’t immediately realize why that sound sets you on edge. Then you’re on your feet, heart pounding and eyes flicking to the side of your helmet. No tasks. But White is standing in the doorway, swiftly making his way inside as a strangled sounding, “You’re not supposed to be--!” The door slides shut with a horrible finality and you find yourself backing up against the wall. The room is barely six and a half feet long and he isn’t stopping. You half trip on your suit as you retreat. Fuck, of all times to be so far away from your knife. 

“Finally, a minute alone.” White says and there’s something new in the pitch of his voice, a rumble that laces under every word that ticks something in your lizard brain that screams ‘danger’. The room is small, too small for you to squeeze around him and get to the door, too small for you to get away. And within seconds of entering the room his clawed hand is balled up in the front of your shirt, dragging you up so your toes are barely touching the floor as he pushes your back against the wall and crowds into your space. You kick out your legs, landing a solid hit against his knee, but it only serves to make your foot throb with pain, he doesn’t even flinch. You try to claw at his hand, get him to loosen his grip, anything, but he doesn’t budge. “What, no knife this time?” 

Thanks for nothing Pink. You think bitterly. You probably should have been expecting that she was lying, that’s her whole job after all, but you had briefly let yourself hope she was telling the truth. You had kind of hoped that White wasn’t really mad at you. “Little hypocritical for you to be upset about that, given you’ve eaten me multiple times.” You wheeze against the iron pressure of his hand against your sternum. 

“Who said I was upset?” But the visor starts to peel open, and like you’ve done in the past you reach for it, trying to push it shut. White uses his free hand to grab one of your wrists and pushes your arm easily back against the wall. You scramble for purchase with the other one, but the visor is already half open, the long sharp tongue already lolling out in the air, and the sharp teeth on full display. You hold your breath, waiting for him to lean forward and take your head off your shoulders. White does lean in, but the teeth don’t close over your helmet. Your breath freezes in your lungs as the tongue slips over the side of the visor, you know from experience that he’s more than capable of skewering your skull through the helmet if he feels like it. Your hand lands on the place where his helmet meets horrible mouth and he flinches, grip on your other wrist tightening slightly. “Careful, it’s still healing.”

The leech-like mouth doesn’t move as he speaks, only his tongue which is still winding through the air slowly, snake-like, and as you’re staring you see it. There’s an inch and a half long dark gray-purple gash at the edge of his mouth, near your hand. It’s not very wide, slipping between two long sharp teeth in the first layer of gums that make up the organic garbage disposal of his face. He doesn’t move and after a second his grip loosens slightly, still restraining but not painful anymore. Your heart is still beating anxiously as you carefully move your fingers closer to the cut. You can’t take your eyes off of the gash. You did that. You hurt this monster that’s been stalking around killing you and your crewmates for endless cycles. Your fingers hover over the edge of the wound. But after a moment White leans forward just a bit, lets your fingertips graze the edge of the flesh. It’s slick and soft, not too different in texture from your own mouth you’d hazard a guess, but the edge of the wound is tight and dense, not rough like a scab, but definitely doesn’t feel the same as the rest of it. You start to pull your hand back, realizing how strange this would be, how terrifying, if someone else were to see it. 

Shakily you ask, “What are the chances of you opening the door and letting me leave if I dug my fingers into here?” 

White presses you hard against the wall, body now flush with yours, earning a surprised yelp and your hand resettles against his shoulder to brace yourself. “Always so inquisitive. You can try and find out.” He offers, pleasantly almost, if not for the way he’s crowded into your space. Heat starts to burn along your spine. “When did you take that knife anyway?” You shudder as his tongue flicks out again, this time finding your neck, just below the edge of your helmet. It’s not smooth, not as soft as the edge of his mouth, the tip feels rigid and sharp. You guess it has to be to break through the glass of your helmet. The touch of it against your skin makes a shiver run along your spine, breath catching in the back of your throat. “Black?” He prompts. 

“Medbay,” your voice is barely your own, strangled and tight when you answer. “While you were sleeping.” 

“That long?” He sounds surprised, then, “And you didn’t try to kill me in my sleep?”

“It didn’t seem fair, the cycle was over and you woke me up the last time.” White hiffs a slight laugh and you feel yourself flush. “Fine next time I catch you sleeping I’ll just stab you.” 

“I guess I won’t let you catch me sleeping then.” He lets go of his grip on your shirt, lowering you carefully back to the floor. You almost wish he hadn’t, your legs feel unsteady beneath you. You’re kind of worried if he moves away you’ll collapse. But he doesn’t move, just reaches for your helmet. 

“Don’t.” You say as he grips the edge. He pauses, then, uses the grip to tilt your head back rather than pull it off. You let him. His tongue finds your throat again. “White,” he presses impossibly closer and your fingers tighten against his shoulders. You could try to push him back, you know he won’t move unless he wants to, but it would tell him to move away since your voice seems to have failed you. Sharp teeth press against the column of your throat and your eyes flutter shut. Fuck, what the hell is happening here? He lets go of your helmet and your wrist and you feel his hands move to your hips. A few of his fingers push under the edge of your shirt and you feel the faint scrape of claws over your skin in tandem with the sharp slide of his teeth. The tiny moan that escapes surprises you. Surprises you enough to open your eyes. When had you closed them?

Your breath catches again then you’re taking both hands and pushing him back. “White,” he doesn’t move away, you really aren’t strong enough for that and it kind of hurts your ego, but his mouth does move away from your neck and he straightens up at the urgency in your voice. His visor closes and, 

“Oh.” The task list on your HUD glows insistently. He still doesn’t move away for a moment. And eventually you hear him sigh before leaning forward again and very gently resting his visor against yours. You half hold your breath, but after what seems like an eternity, he moves away. “Later.” He says it like a promise and your skin feels like it’s on fire. “Get dressed, don’t take too long. It’ll look suspicious if no one sees you up top.” White is already at the door as he speaks, it opens and shuts behind him unceremoniously. 

Oh. Look at that. You were right about your legs not being steady enough to hold you up on your own.

* * *

You do not make it up to do tasks before the first body is found. Red, ripped in half apparently, not even eaten. Somehow you can tell that White is looking at you disappointedly even as he votes you off along with the rest of the crew. 

When you’re left standing on the broken ship a few minutes later you let out one long unholy scream before throwing yourself onto the floor. Your arms spread wide as you try to figure out what kind of fresh hell you’ve gotten yourself into.

* * *

You go through the next couple of cycles in a haze. You die in a couple of them, you think Green snaps your neck, Purple definitely eats your head, and you get voted off for not being able to keep your story straight an embarrassing number of times. The crew does manage to still win a few, not thanks to you in any way, but still. It feels like it’s been a week or so since the last time Imposter-White was on the ship. 

So you really, really, need to stop staring at your crewmate White whenever you happen to end up in the same room together. You can’t seem to stop yourself though. And you really, really would like to stop yourself. But. Your eyes just… stray. Crewmate-White carries himself differently, he walks with uneven nervous steps, constantly flitting in this direction and that as if he can’t decide which task needs his attention first. He seems to find an endless stream of things to tinker with in Weapons and you’re pretty sure you caught him reorganizing things in Storage between cycles just for the fun of it. He’s not nearly as vocal as Red in meetings, but he’s usually one of the first to start pointing a finger over even the slightest thing that he personally finds off-putting, even if there isn’t any other evidence. He really is a completely different person than Imposter-White, which isn’t a surprise, that’s the whole point after all, but you come to the realization that you don’t like White. You actively prefer his murderous counterpart. Your mind unhelpfully conjures up memories of his sharp tongue and the weight of his body pressed to yours. 

It’s an uncomfortable realization all around.

* * *

“Can you please not sit on that?” You mutter at Pink as she perches on top of the Reactor. 

“If it’s any consolation I won’t make my chair meltdown.” She offers. You finish your work and you should immediately get on with the next task. But instead you sit down on the floor. “Whoa, you’re blowing off tasks? Damn, something wrong ,charcoal?”

“Just tired.” You hear the door shut and it’s more of a courtesy than you were really expecting from her. 

“It’s random, if we’re sent here or not.” She swings her legs slowly back and forth in the air. “He is dying to see you too, he just hasn’t gotten to come back yet.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You lie, voice flat and dull. You are tired. And you don’t want to see White. It will only make things worse. Pink hops off of the reactor as the doors open. 

“Alright if you’re not going to be interesting then I’ve got a job to do.” She moves over to the northern vent, kicking in a panel of wiring along her way. The reactor’s lights start to flash and the alarm blares. Pink slips out through the vent before Orange comes running in. You’re so tempted to not help her shut it down.

* * *

It’s another six cycles before you all beat a cycle through tasks again. Brown, Red, and Purple are dead, and you all voted Blue out. You’re pretty confident he was one of the imposters this time around, but regardless there is definitely one left on the ship as the cycle winds down. Yellow and Orange leave the Cafeteria chatting, nothing out of place there, White is still bumbling around in his unmistakable way, Pink is heading to bed, and Lime is heading for the kitchen. You watch them all go. Nothing seems out of place. But instinctively you stand and head after Green. 

They’re already in Medbay, standing in front of the samples, by the time you walk in. They glance over at you but keep at whatever has their attention on the screen. You sit down on the edge of the cot you occupied last time you were here and desperately shove the memory of White bandaging your hands from your mind. Green doesn’t speak for nearly ten minutes. 

“Was there something you needed, Black?” 

“Not really, no.” And then you decide to just be honest. “I just wanted to talk to you. Pink said she thought we would get along.” If it’s not them, if this isn’t your crewmate you’ll know. You don’t know Green as well as you know White, now that you’ve been watching him, but you have spoken on more than one occasion with Crewmate-Green, you could even be considered friendly on good cycles. You appreciate their analytical nature and their dedication to facts above feelings. 

“And why does she think that?”

But you and Imposter-Green have never spoken outside of a meeting. “Well that’s it right there. She said we were both inquisitive.” You don’t like the way the tension drains from your spine. But you’re between cycles. They won’t kill you. And it feels better knowing for sure who the traitor was. “What are you working on? New ways to sabotage us?” 

“No,” they swipe through the files on their screen. “My counterpart and I have been compiling data, win-loss tallies, wait times between cycles, which crew members were replaced each cycle, anything that might be a relevant data point.” 

“You’re both aware of each other that much?” You have no idea what the imposter you is like, Pink and White haven’t even made mention of him. 

“Like you said, we’re ‘inquisitive’.” They keep tapping away at the screen. 

“Do you know how long we’ve been here?” 

Green’s hand stills. Medbay is silent for a few long breaths. “Time doesn’t work quite right wherever we are now. But after our initial estimate your crewmate informed me that the information would likely be distressing to their crewmates and we’ve agreed not to share our findings until we have more to go on.” With an answer like that it must be wild. Years? Hundreds of years? Or maybe wild in the other direction? Minutes? Seconds? Perhaps you’re all existing on some sort of precipice of Schrodinger’s design, all of these versions of reality existing all at once until whatever the real final outcome happens. Maybe that cold dead version of the Skeld is what is waiting for you all on the other side. 

“What are you guys planning on doing with all that data?” 

They do finally turn to look at you now. “We’re trying to find a way out.” They say, so matter-of-fact, so calm, like you should have been expecting it. But the words slide over your brain so quickly that it takes a long moment for the meaning to sink in. 

“You think there’s a way out?” 

Green looks back at the screen, not tapping at it, just considering. “There was a way in, there has to be one out. We just don’t have enough data yet.” 

“But you’re going to keep looking?” 

“We are.” And they’re an imposter, a murderer on their truly bad days, but you believe them. You hear the shift in their voice, the moment they go from just relaying facts to you, to the moment that they are sharing something sincere and vulnerable. The shape of a plan, the intent to comfort, to assure you that they and your crewmate counterpart haven’t given up. They’re not content being stuck here for the rest of eternity or until one of the many deaths actually sticks. They’re looking for a way out, together, for all of you. 

“Do your people know?”

“That we’re looking? I’ve only told Blue, but I suspect Brown and Pink know as well.” 

“They don’t mind you working with our Green?” 

“As long as it doesn’t interfere in a cycle there doesn’t seem to be any issue. But you should know that by now.” 

You bristle. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

You can’t see their face but you’re pretty sure they just rolled their eyes at you. “You’re here talking to me, aren’t you? You already mentioned talking to Pink.” They tap at the screen, but it lacks the same purpose as it did before. “And White is disgustingly fond of you from what I hear, which I somehow doubt could be achieved by your in-cycle interactions with him.” Green considers. “Though his kind does seem to be the type to find overt acts of violence attractive in a potential mate.” 

That’s a lot to unpack. “That’s a lot to unpack-- _mate_?! 

Green side-eyes you again. You can tell. Even with the opaque visor. “No thank you.” 

“You know that’s not what I meant.” You hiss at them. Your mind unhelpfully reminds you of White’s claws on your hips and tongue at your throat. Okay, so maybe the ‘mate’ thing isn’t exactly a surprise. You rest your helmeted head in your hands, you’re glad Green can’t see your face because you can feel your skin flush. “Are you not the same as him?” 

“As far as species goes? No. From what I’ve gathered from the others there are three different kinds here, but as I’m sure you know, the memory loss from the cycles has stymied any attempts to identify each. My species is decidedly more ‘human-like’ than White’s.” 

“That why you prefer to use your hands?” You mutter. 

“It’s quieter than a gun.” They commit absolutely no effort into sounding remorseful for breaking your neck a few cycles back. 

You don’t have anything to say to that. They go back to working on their files. When they’re not in a cycle, they’re not so bad. Not just Green, all of them you’d guess. Your crewmate Green gets along with this one just fine, and that’s definitely not the same as what you think you might be doing with White, but maybe, maybe it’s not as strange and incomprehensible as you’d feared it would be. Maybe outside of the cycles they’re just twenty-four people? Creatures? Being held hostage by some strange force. Maybe outside of cycles they can….

“Do you,” you don’t manage to look up from your hands. “I know you said it’s random, but can you roughly predict who will be chosen next?” You have only a loose grasp on probability equations, but you think that maybe that would be something that Green would be able to do. 

“... I can.” You can’t hear their glove moving against the touch screen anymore. “I can’t give you an unfair advantage against my teammates.” 

“That’s fine, I wouldn’t ask you to.” You manage to look up. “You can be vague, I just… it’s been a long time since we shared a cycle.” Green doesn’t say anything for another full minute. You figure that’ as much as they’re willing to share with you. That’s fine. (It doesn’t feel fine as your stomach ties itself in knots.) You shouldn’t have asked in the first place. You shouldn’t be so on edge waiting for White to come back anyway. It will only make that cycle harder. You push off the cot. Maybe you need some sleep. 

“Black,” They call as you make your way to the doors. “It’s random, but there is a chance that when he comes back he’ll be given multiple cycles after this long absence.” 

“Thanks,” you mean it, even as the weight in your chest fails to loosen at the news. “If you ever need any more data, either of you, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

* * *

It’s another five cycles. In the first one you snap at White for being so neurotic, he retorts by accusing you of keeping a suspiciously close eye on him. You get to your feet at the table, and as if guided by Imposter-Pink herself, pointing out how little White actually has gotten done given all his fluttering about. The votes are cast. You feel pretty awful about getting your own crewmate killed, especially since you know he wasn’t the imposter. In the second you’re rewiring in Admin when Orange comes up behind you and slips a knife between your ribs. You feel your suit filling with blood as you drop to the ground, falling through the floor onto the dead ship. In the third one you catch Purple chewing on Red’s bones and get him voted off. In the forth White gets his revenge and gets you booted. To be fair you really should have reported Blue’s body as soon as you saw it, but you couldn’t resist moving in for a closer look, half hoping it would be partially consumed and hating yourself for thinking that the entire time. 

In the fifth you start the cycle in the Cafeteria. You have taken to eating at odd hours, or what you think are odd enough, in the hopes of not having to take off your helmet in front of anyone else. You wonder if that instinct is something that the cycles have instilled in you. Surely you had to have seen your crewmates face-to-face when you were being trained. But the idea of being that vulnerable with any of them makes panic seize your lungs. So you eat quickly and alone, with your ears straining for any sign of movement from any of your companions.

You catch the whisper of footsteps down the hall and pull on your helmet. Your task list glows in the corner and you stand, picking up the wrappers from your rations and dumping them into the trash as you head for the opposite door. You’re better off steering clear of the others until the first meeting. You read through your tasks for the cycle. It’s a shorter list, but with a few of the longer tasks to round out your schedule of running around trying to avoid being murdered. 

You make it through refueling and Simon Says before the first meeting is called. 

“Purple and Orange were both dead in Electrical.” Cyan says with little ceremony as they slump into their seat at the table. “Orange was shot, Purple was eaten.” 

“Fuck.” Red mutters. You agree with the sentiment. The imposters all have their own distinct styles for their kills. They never change that mid-cycle. Which means this was a double kill and if they’re confident enough to pull that off then you all are in for a rough cycle. 

“Where was everyone?” Blue asks. 

“I was in storage to refuel and then I was working with the reactor. I passed Electrical but I didn’t see anyone by the door.”

“The bodies were in the far back behind the console,” Cyan says, resting their chin against the edge of the table. “There’s no way you could see them from the hall. I was in Nav and then needed to go divert power.” 

“I was with Green in Weapons. I had to do some rewiring and I decided to stay and watch them finish up with asteroids just in case.” Yellow. 

“Blue and I were in Admin.” Red doesn’t elaborate further. 

“I was in here downloading files.” Lime. 

“I started in Navigation.” You hear the hesitation in Pink’s voice. “But I didn’t see Cyan.” 

Cyan sits up straight. “What do you mean?”

Pink hesitates again. “I was in Navigation for a long time and I didn’t see you there.” 

“I was in security for a while.” White says carefully. You resolutely don’t give him your full attention. Clearly he’s holding grudges between cycles and you’d rather not earn his ire this one. “When did you find the time to go up to Medbay, Cyan?” 

“Medbay? I never went up there!” 

“I saw White in Security. He was definitely on cams. Both Pink and White say you weren’t where you’re telling us you were.” Brown says flatly. “With killers this confident it wouldn’t be out of the question for them to kill, have one vent, and have the other report to redirect suspicions.” 

Around the table you all go quiet. Then, “They’re _lying_!” 

“There can only be two imposters, Cyan. Three people can confirm either not seeing you where you said you were or can vouch for each other's locations. Not all three of them could benefit from lying.” Blue says carefully. 

Red casts the first vote, but you, Pink, Brown, and White are quick to follow. Cyan stomps to the airlock and flips you all the bird as they’re whisked out into the nothingness. It’s not until after you’re standing up, you have a stint in Weapons ahead of you, that you realize something feels off. First meeting, practically no evidence, and yet someone was still voted off. It feels like Imposter-Pink’s handywork. But she doesn’t usually kill outright. Your stomach is in knots as you get the system pulled up to try and clear the meteor field.

* * *

You’re there for a disgustingly long time. God you hope someone is in Nav planning to steer the ship in another direction, any other direction, because the asteroid field in front of you is going to definitely be a persistent problem if not. You’re just getting to your feet when the reactor starts to overload. Shit. You’re on the other side of the ship but you make your way in that direction. You’re fairly sure that the others will beat you to it, but you want to make sure. 

You’re in the hall near Medbay when the alarms stop. You turn back around to go download some files from Caf when the lights go out. You blindly make your way back into the Cafeteria. By the time the lights start to come back up and you’ve found the download panel the meeting alarm is blaring again. 

When everyone comes in your stomach sinks. Only Red, Brown, Yellow, Pink, and White remain. Holy shit. Lime, Blue, and Green are dead. That’s… that’s an insanely efficient kill rate. That’s too efficient. Your already uneasy stomach twists in on itself further. There’s no way that Cyan was one of the killers. Not with them pulling these numbers. 

“Hey Brown wanna explain why you were standing over Blue’s body at lights?” Red snarls. 

“The light’s were off!” She protests. “I couldn’t see him until after I finished repairing them and then you were standing there shouting before I could move!” 

“Last meeting Brown said that she saw me in security, I was so I didn’t say anything,” White says. “But I didn’t see her come into the office at all. I saw her pass by and disappear moving down towards Electrical.” 

“That’s sus as fuck Brown!” Red is on his feet, hands planted against the table. 

“You know what, fuck you Red!” Brown snaps back jumping up as well. “You’re always pointing fingers with literally nothing to go on! You don’t care who’s innocent or guilty as long as you get to throw someone out of the airlock! Maybe you’re the imposter, you’re always following Blue around like a lost puppy anyway, you could have killed him easy!” 

“Guys, come on,” Pink says, raising her hands placatingly. “Fighting like this isn’t going to solve anything, it’s only going to make things harder. We need to stick together and focus up to figure out what is going on.” 

“She killed Blue.” Red insists. 

“No I didn’t! He’s just being a paranoid jackass!” 

“What are we doing?” Yellow asks. 

“I’m voting a murderer out.” Red hisses as he casts his vote. 

“Fuck you. I was fixing the lights, I had no idea Blue was dead until I got them working again.” 

“I don’t think we should be voting this round.” Pink tries. “We don’t have enough evidence--” 

“Fuck evidence I know what I saw.” 

There’s a long pause. Brown casts her vote, White does after another moment, and finally Yellow. Pink refuses and somewhat relieved you follow her lead. It won’t look so suspicious if both of you pass. You don’t think there is enough to go off here, but you’re not exactly surprised to see Brown’s name appear on the screen. 

“It’s Red. If it’s not him actively then he’s being used as a pawn, he’s certainly dumb enough for it.” She stomps off towards the airlock and Red, with an air of vicious vindication follows her to push the button. 

You don’t stick around as the meeting ends. There’s no way you and your remaining crewmates are going to last long enough to complete your tasks. You need to figure this out or you’re all going to be dead. You head immediately to Security. You don’t know how useful it will be but you can hope to find someone somewhere they’re not supposed to be. You’re pretty sure these imposters are too on their game this time for the cameras to catch a kill or venting, but you can try. 

You’re camping the cams for ten minutes before the Oxygen system starts to fail. You start to stand, only to watch Red, Yellow, and Pink start to head in that direction. Between the three of them they should have it covered. You track their progress across the screens, see Red taking off through the hallway by Medbay--

And White steps out into his path, in full view of the camera. Red stops in his tracks, he must realize what’s happening. You see his hands ball into fists at his side. He’s probably saying something. You try to strain your ears, but the cameras don’t relay audio and the sound doesn’t travel over the dull roar of the nearby engines. White steps forward and you watch as the middle of his suit separates, white material peeling apart and solidifying into teeth as the long secondary tongue whips through the air and drags Red in by his ankle. You watch your crewmate scrabble at the floor, for anything to slow his movement, but the floors are smooth with nothing to grip. He half twists, tries to kick at the tongue on his suit, but it doesn’t do him any good. White’s mouth is fully formed now and you can’t do anything but watch as the teeth close over Red’s helmet and shoulders. Suddenly you’re immensely grateful there isn’t any sound. You don’t want to know what the auditory experience of watching White’s monstrous jaws snap through your crewmate’s flesh is like, especially not when the spine doesn’t break cleanly and you see the spinal cord and cartilage stretch and pop away from Red’s limp legs as the remainder of his body thuds to the floor. 

The screens go dark. You fall back into the chair as the engines and reactor shut down. Cycle over then. You lost. How? How had you not realized that this wasn’t your crewmate? Or had you just been desperate not to see? Because knowing it’s White, Imposter-White, Monster-White, your White, would have distracted you. Because if you had let yourself pay attention and notice then you would have been plagued with thoughts of claws and tongues and heat that have already kept you distracted for a number of cycles, thoughts that got you killed during more than one of them. 

You get to your feet. Fuck, White definitely saw the camera was on before killing Red, there’s no way that he didn’t. Which means he’s going to come looking for whoever is in here. You start towards the door but with the engines and reactor deactivated, you pause, suddenly aware of the sound of smooth even footsteps already making their way towards you. A heaviness settles in your stomach. If he’s already rounded the corner then he’ll see you leave and if this turns into a chase he’s going to catch you. You back up from the door. The footsteps draw nearer. You unzip your pocket and curl your fingers over the scalpel. You scrape your nail over the grooves of the numbers on the handle. But is it worth it? You can practically feel the strange hard texture of the gash over White’s gums under your fingertips. 

The door slides open. Your heart stutters. 

“There you are.” How in the hell is his suit still clean? The entire hallway was drenched, but once again White is standing in front of you without a speck of blood on his clothes. He moves towards you and you take a few steps back, tank hitting the security console faster than you were expecting. White pauses. You think you see something shift behind his visor. “Are you planning on stabbing me again?” He barely tilts his head towards the knife you’re clenching at your side. 

“I don’t know yet.” It’s as honest an answer as you can manage, hand trembling slightly around the blade. 

“I’m sure I’ll know one way or the other when you’ve made your decision.” He walks right up to you and you can hardly hear his footfalls over the roaring of blood in your ears. Your skin is burning and you can’t tell if it’s terror or--

“What are you doing?” You try to move back again when he reaches for you. 

“I said ‘later’ didn’t I?” He grabs one of the straps that crosses over your chest and pulls you closer. Then he leans forward and very gently presses your visors together again. You hold your breath, and through the darkness, through the glass you think you can see something on the other side of his visor. A cluster of elongated slitted eyes that stretch behind the glass. He moves back a bit after a moment. 

“Why do you keep doing that?” The question leaves you on a breath but it still sounds jarringly loud in the absolute silence of the ship. 

White makes a strange growling clicking sound in the back of his throat. “You won’t let me take your helmet off, and I don’t think I can do it the way you’d be used to anyway. It’s important to humans, I think.” When you don’t say anything White leans back in and the visors click together again in a mockery of a kiss. 

Oh. Well, yeah, you guess with his leech-mouth situation this is as probably as close as he can get. Heat curls through your veins. A kiss. It isn’t a surprise, it can’t be, you’re not that oblivious. But he’s killed you on more than one occasion. You just watched him brutally murder your crewmate. You’ve stabbed him once and gotten him ejected multiple times. All of those things are definitely going to happen again in the future. Kissing him is a terrible idea. Kissing him crosses a line that you’ve already been dangerously flirting with, from hanging around with Pink during cycles, to talking with Green outside of them. Those things are already dangerous. Knowing any of them too well will only make each cycle harder. This is leaps and bounds beyond that. This would have your crewmates voting you out every cycle first regardless of wrongdoing. This is insane. 

Very tentatively you lean forward this time and click the glass of your helmet against his. White responds with another rumbling growl-click noise and he presses fully against you, your pack hits the console again, and this time he pins you to it. You drop the scalpel to the console. It seems to be all the permission he needs as he uses a claw to catch the edge of your zipper and drags it down to your pelvis, pushing the thick material to the side. The visor splits open again, and his tongue is scraping against your exposed neck the same way it had cycles ago in your room. You half yelp as he lifts you effortlessly, and sits you on the edge of the console, spreading your legs so he can slot himself between them. Your hands find his shoulders to steady yourself as he presses the flats of his teeth against your throat as his claws move swiftly under your shirt to rake over your skin. 

You feel your flesh prickle and raise, sure that he’s making pink irritated lines over your sides, and shiver. Your pulse pounds in your ears, danger, danger, danger, as this monster starts to explore every inch of you that he can reach. Your helmet thumps hard against the dark screens behind you as his teeth close over your neck. Panic seizes you, half expecting to blink and be on the dead ship, but instead you’re just left whimpering, the sharp press of teeth sending your blood thrumming under your veins, cock twitching at the sensation. 

His jaw tenses, just slightly, but it’s enough to break your skin. You hiss as the teeth sink in, little hot wells of blood coming up around the points before he lets go. His tongue immediately laving over the wounds. “Fuck, don’t break me.” You whisper breathlessly. 

“I won’t.” But as he says it you hear his suit tearing open, feel his side shift against your thighs, the mouth at his stomach splits open. Oh if he kills you, you’re going to be pissed. You drop one hand back to the console, fumbling for a second to get a grip on the scalpel. And then the large tongue is sliding over your stomach and dipping down beneath the waistband of your sweats. A stream of expletives leaves you and you barely notice the sharp pain coming from your palm. 

Things happen in a blur after that. The hot slick heat of his tongues finding any bit of skin they can until he’s tugging your pants down over your hips. The tongue from his stomach licking over your cock and balls, back to your entrance and opening you up. Your hands pass over his suit, but with your gloves on you can’t tell what is skin and what isn’t on his strange anatomy. A thick red smear of blood appears on his shoulder and you’re absolutely going to blame the tongue in your ass and hand wrapped around your cock for how long it takes you to realize that the blood is yours. That you apparently stabbed yourself grabbing the pointy end of your knife. But White presses on unperturbed, other hand moving to catch your wrist and bringing you hand to his visor, tongue curling over your glove and dipping into the split material to move across your palm. You whimper when his secondary tongue pulls out of you, pride in tatters as you immediately open your mouth to beg for it back. Instead you hear another slick tearing sound and look down to see a thin slit appearing at the crotch of his suit. After a second his cock, still the same stark white as his suit, pushes free. You don’t get a great look at it before he’s pushing your knees to your chest and you’re trying to rebalance yourself against the console, but as it presses into you it definitely doesn’t feel much less prehensile than his tongues. 

The first few thrusts are slow, careful. The drag and slide of him, his tongue at your throat and licking along the v of your hips, is measured. You feel like you’re on fire. “White--” 

“I _could_ break you.” He says in way of explanation and the words are almost lost to the rumble in his throat. 

You’re supposed to be smarter than this. You are in space, you are a rocket scientist for sure given your tasks around the ship. You should be smart enough to not take the warnings from the monster that’s fucking you lightly. But you can barely breathe with how much you need this. You want his teeth and claws, you want his cock, you want that monstrous strength laid into every inch of you. You drag him impossibly closer, thunk your helmet against the side of his, careful to not catch the edge of his gums or teeth, and whisper, “ _please._ ”

White makes another angry series of clicking sounds in the back of his throat and you think that he’s not going to oblige you for a moment. Then he’s moving his hands from your skin, one braced against the console and one on the bank of monitors built into the wall. The metal creaks under his grip, his claws making a horrible sound as they scratch groves into the glass as he starts moving again. All you can do is hang on to him, lost in the brutal pace he settles into. 

When you finally come it’s over his stomach, splattering his teeth and tongue as it curls around you and milks you dry. It’s not long later, with every inch of your body screaming with over stimulation, that the hand braced beside your head shatters the screen. You whimper as you feel his cock twitch before something cooler than you expected it to be is painting your insides.

Your breathing sounds impossibly loud in the small room. And you realize that White isn’t breathing at all. How had you never noticed that before? He shifts, pulls out, and you shiver as a thin trickle of his come sliters down your thigh. His tongue finds your throat again as the mouth across his stomach knits itself closed again. You let your head lull lazily to the side to give him more room and after a moment he presses the flats of his teeth back against your throat. Glass tinkles against the console and floor as he pulls his hand from the shattered remains of the screen. He moves away from your throat, visor closing again, and taps his helmet against yours. A small sigh slips out as you close your eyes and lean your head forward. 

Neither of you move for a while but eventually he helps you to straighten out your clothes. He looks worse off than you, your blood smeared across the side of his helmet, his shoulder, along his arm, everywhere you grabbed him with your bleeding hand. But the blood is invisible on your suit even as you can feel the wetness trapped inside of your glove. White helps you down from the console, your legs stiff and unsteady beneath you. 

“How long do you think we have before the next cycle?” It’s a pointless question. Apparently not even the Greens have gotten that much pinned down. White doesn’t even deign to answer, instead looping an arm around your waist and helping you get to the door. 

“You did a number on your hand. Medbay.” 

You don’t argue. You also don’t say anything when he carelessly kicks the remains of Red’s body to the side to clear your path. The blood sticks to your feet and leaves tacky shoe prints as you make your way down the hall.

* * *

You get another hour or so before the next cycle starts. You spend that time with White licking at your wounds, in a bit more literal way than you’d expected. He pulls off your glove and cleans away the slick blood on your palm with his tongue, waiting for the bleeding to turn sluggish before he goes for the bandages. You probably need stitches, but you’ve never experienced a gap long enough between cycles to make you think that they would actually be necessary for your healing. By the time he’s finished you’ve given up any thought of making your way to the showers or your bunk, instead urging White closer so you can press your visor to his. He lets you cling to him as sleep comes fast for you. 

You wake up alone in your bunk, hand and neck healed, glove repaired, and with a fresh list of tasks appearing on your screen.

* * *

“How do you talk to them?” You don’t need to be in the Cafeteria, but you’re reasonably certain that Green isn’t an imposter this time around and they need to download files and upload in Admin. You’ve got to swipe your card anyway so you figure you can wait for them to finish first. 

Green is quiet for a long moment. “We leave logs for one another.” 

“So you’ve never been physically in the same place together?” 

The download pings and Green unhooks their tablet from the panel. “No, I don’t think anyone has actually met their doppleganger.” They turn to the south hall and you follow. 

“I know I’m breaking a lot of rules,”

“As if I’m not?” Green shrugs. “The rules are in place to keep us from making mistakes during cycles. I don’t think they work as well as everyone would like to pretend.” Given the amount of times you and this White have gotten each other killed over petty grudges Green’s probably right. 

“Okay.” You peer into Admin, and when no crewmate alive or dead appears to be present you move inside and over to the card swiper. “What’s the other me like?” 

“He’s like you.” They say slowly. 

“The other Green is sassier than you.” You offer as an example. “Imposter-Pink is manipulative and lazy. Our White is nervous and neurotic and has a stick the size of the reactor up his butt.” 

Green is quiet for a long moment. You have a lot of other tasks to get to, but things are going smoothly this cycle for the most part. You have time. “The other Black kills with his hands. I haven’t spent much time with him outside of meetings, but he seems to like confusing us. He always manages to add some information to the conversation that only makes everyone confused.” 

“Pink does that too.”

They shake their head. “No, not like that. Black doesn’t care if he gets caught in a lie or voted out. He just wants to cause as much strife during the meetings as possible.” 

“Huh sounds like an asshole.” 

“He is you to some degree.” 

“You know what, I take it back. You are definitely the sassier of the two Greens.”

* * *

You stop keeping track of cycles. It’s not worth the effort. You also stop hiding in your room all the time. Until the Greens figure out what to do here there is no escaping these people. You have no memories to get lost in, you have no future to look forward to. There is nothing. So you might as well just stop pretending like you can reasonably keep yourself away from them all for the rest of your unnatural lives. You’re still not quite ready to take off your suit in front of anyone else, that’s a little too vulnerable, but you do hang around in the common areas more. 

You try to spend more time with your crewmates between cycles. Cyan is quiet in general and brought with them a sketchbook and pens. They ran out of paper a while ago and they don’t remember having drawn half of the pictures in the pages, but there’s a sketch of a house that they linger on for a long time when they flip through the book with you. Orange isn’t shy but doesn’t like to talk for very long, whatever trauma that happened to her throat keeping her from being comfortable for extended conversations. She brought a rubix cube and can do it with her eyes closed this many cycles in. You don’t manage to spend any time with Blue or Red, mainly because it seems like they are always together and Red’s aggressive personality is somehow even less tolerable outside of the cycles. Purple is a loner, which to be fair so were you until recently, but he doesn’t seem interested in changing that. It doesn’t feel malicious on his part and you leave him alone. 

Lime you think would be funny. She has this air about her and this way of talking that you could imagine doing stand-up. But she’s without her memories, without anything but the cycles on the Skeld to draw from, and there aren’t a lot of laughs to be found here. But she’s lively and cheerful and you can see why the perpetually dower Yellow gravitates towards her. They both brought books with them, Lime’s a short story collection and Yellow’s a young adult trilogy bound together with well-loved wrinkled and creased pages. Brown is very focused, assigning herself tasks between cycles as if the ship doesn’t completely reset itself each time you start a new one. She has a seriousness to her that is similar to Blue during meetings, but you know she has a temper under that. Her item is, to your surprise, a plush egg with a strange slithering thing bursting out of the shell. You think it looks vaguely familiar but your memory doesn’t let you make the connection. 

You don’t spend much time with your crewmate Pink, she’s always busy with something, hands sunk deep in the reactor or engines, hoping to figure out what it is the imposters always do to send it into override. She frustratedly can’t seem to figure it out. Green spends most of their time in Medbay going over the logs, but when you visit them, or their imposter counterpart, you go over the most recent cycles, and your experiences get piled on to the mountain of data. The imposter Pink you mostly only talk to in passing during cycles, she is always quick to tease you or get you voted off. Somehow you have started to equate this behavior with her way of expressing friendship. Maybe after the endless cycle of dying and betrayal you’ve lost your mind. You’re still sane enough to avoid your crewmate White like the plague though so maybe you’re not completely gone. 

It’s not often that you and the other White are both in the same cycle together and both of you survive it, you’re pretty sure he isn’t telling his cohorts about you, and you aren’t so far gone to let him get away with killing your crewmates when you pick up on his presence just to get laid. But when you both do survive you are still spending an unreasonable amount of time together so you’re not completely gone, but you’re a little gone. 

You try not to care.

* * *

You’re kind of glad that the imposters retain their ability to open and close doors on the ship even after the cycles have ended. It means that White can very reliably keep anyone from spotting him in the halls when he makes his way to your room. Which would definitely look suspicious given how often you and your crewmate White are at each other's throats in a less than enjoyable way. 

White is laying on your bed by the time you finish talking to Green, your version, at the end of the cycle. You won on tasks this cycle and you’re fairly certain that the voted out Orange was White’s partner this time around. But with a total loss of just Orange, Red, and Purple it was a pretty good cycle on your end. You shut your door, hanging up your suit and keeping your helmet on, leaving you in your usual black tee-shirt and sweats, the others have similar clothes underneath their suits, all in their corresponding colors as well apparently which makes your skin prickle with wrongness. But you actively try not to think about it as you climb into your small bunk with White. He doesn’t look up at you, paging through Lime’s short story book that she graciously loaned you. Without much room you end up laying on top of him, hands folded over his stomach for your chin to rest on. 

“Are you being a sore loser?” 

He uses one hand to settle between your neck and shoulder and soothes his thumb over your skin. “Let me finish.” The gentle touch tells you he isn’t mad, so you leave him be. Sort of. 

Without your gloves on you have the rare opportunity to touch him and you sit up slightly so that you can start running your fingers along the suit. You can feel immediately that the material isn’t the same. It’s leathery, smooth enough when you stroke down and rough when you move upwards, like a shark. You find a place where the fabric should wrinkle and rub your thumb along it. The skin shudders and shifts, reshaping itself to be smooth. You scrape the edge of your short nails along the straps at his shoulders, but they don’t move, attached to the actual body of the suit. Your hands drift back down to the stomach, poking and prodding, running your fingers along false seams and zippers, feeling for any indication of the maw you know hides beneath. You think the most you can feel is the vague outline of teeth when you press just right, but your mind could be playing tricks on you. You’re so preoccupied with your investigation that you don’t realize he’s growling and clicking until a sharp clawed hand is pressing against the back of your neck restrainingly. You glance up at him somewhat sheepishly, not that he can see your face, as you realize he’s set the book aside and his main mouth is partially opened baring sharp teeth. 

“Sorry.” You press back against the claws. You never considered yourself a masochist before him. But something in the way he shows his affection, something maybe in how desensitized you’ve become to even grievous injuries, makes you appreciate the pain. 

“Can I help you with something?” 

You spread your hands over his stomach again. “I just wanted to know how much of this you feel, how much you process like we do.” 

“I can feel you just fine Black.” He murmurs, using his grip on the back of your neck to pull you up so that your helmets can rest against one another.

* * *

He doesn’t protest when you keep touching him, opening both his mouths at your request, letting you thumb over the slit between his legs until he gets hard enough his cock, tapered and smooth along the length of it until you reach a crest of bone on the underside of the base, slides free and you eagerly familiarize yourself with that too. He certainly doesn’t protest when you strip off the rest of your clothes and climb on top of him, sinking back on his cock as his claws leave bloody grooves over your hips as you ride him until you’re a trembling bleeding mess with his teeth buried in your shoulder. 

He carefully lays you down when you’re done, tongue finding the marks on your hips and then on your neck. “Why do you do that? Are you just having a snack or..?” 

“You do make an excellent meal.” He murmurs the low rumbles underneath his words haven’t subsided yet. “But I don’t know. I don’t remember anything about myself, my people, our traditions. This feels familiar though.” He presses the flats of his teeth against your throat. You wonder if he has another mouth somewhere else that he uses to speak or if it’s something more bizarre. “Whatever keeps these cycles going was more focused on making sure the others and myself knew enough about humans to reliably fool you. Our species were inconsequential.” 

You don’t know what to say to that. ‘I’m sorry’ feels hollow. You all lost so much to these cycles. The treehouse photo stares at you blankly on the other side of the room. Instead you tap your helmet to the side of his. A new tradition. Something the two of you made that is all your own. White’s visor shuts and he taps back against you.

* * *

You die in the next three cycles. Pink gets you voted off, Orange shoots you in the face, and White eats your head. Which. You think maybe you should be angry about, or disgruntled at least. But when you wake up in the dead ship your first thought is that you wish you still had your knife. At least then you could have made it a little harder for him. Which, you admit, isn’t probably a marker of a particularly healthy relationship, but given your circumstances and the fact you are being forced into a loop of constantly trying to kill each other you don’t know how healthy any possible relationship together could actually be. You wonder if the Greens will ever figure this out and if all twenty-four of you will still exist together when it’s over. Or if all the imposters in their various species were pulled into this loop from far flung worlds. If they will be so far gone from you all and this ship that you won’t have a chance to see if this could work in any other reality. 

You make your way through cold echoing hallways, past walls with panels hanging loose and wires dragging against the floor, to your bunk. The picture barely hangs on the wall with the tape peeling up at the edges. You sit on the floor, the bunk’s hinges have rusted from the wall and left it half collapsed, and stare at the photo. It tells you no more now than it did when you were alive on the Skeld.

* * *

You all do still win that cycle. You die in the next one but Green tells you that one goes alright as well. There are a few more, a general mixed bag of wins and losses as there always are. If it weren’t for how horrible being on the dead ship leaves you feeling you don’t think you’d even care about the cycles anymore at this point. 

So when you convince imposter Pink to come back into the kitchen with you during the next cycle you share you don’t feel as bad as you probably should about abandoning your crewmates. You’re already two meetings in. Pink’s partner, Purple you’re pretty sure of that- is the same species as your White and the bodies have been eaten thus far--, has been making his way swiftly through your crewmates. Taking out Blue and Green, the voices of reason, before the first meeting. Pink then got rid of Yellow during the voting then. And once set loose again Purple knocked off Orange and White, another logical and through crewmate and not great loss of anything useful respectively. Pink hadn’t had enough to work with during that meeting, but you could see her starting to angle. Planting seeds. They’ll come to fruition next meeting you’d wager. But at this rate you don’t really have a hope of winning this cycle. You’ll put in a solid effort to convince your crewmates of the imposters’ identities, but you’re more likely than not going to be voted out for your trouble. 

You don’t even have to try very hard to convince Pink to come back into the kitchen with you. You just wave for her to follow you and she does. It’s not like you’re a threat anyway. Now you’re sitting with her on the floor, backs pressed against a cabinet that stretches across half of the wall, one of the doors open to separate you. A little mock privacy screen so that when you grab two tubes of yogurt out of the cabinet and sit down, passing the tube to Pink under the edge of the door, she doesn’t hesitate to take the tube and remove her helmet. 

“Yogurt?” 

“Helps with the calcium loss in microgravity.” You say. The knowledge left over from your training just like how to do your tasks. “And someone else always eats the blueberry ones between cycles.” You hear her tear the plastic between her teeth and you remove your helmet and do the same. She’s quiet for a long time. Longer than you think you’ve ever heard her be quiet. Something occurs to you a bit belatedly. “Can you eat our food? Do you eat?” 

“I eat, what do you think I am? A plant?” She sounds like she’s concentrating. “And Green thinks we’re pretty compatible with you.” You strain your ears and after a second you hear the compression of the plastic tube. There’s another beat of silence. “It’s sour. Sweet?” The tube makes another noise. “It’s weird. It… reminds me of something.” She doesn’t elaborate. You’d guess that she can’t. But as long as it’s not reminding her of a deadly poison or something you guess it’s not anything to worry about. 

You open your own tube and you both just eat in silence for a while. The lights go out eventually and you make no move to stand. With five deaths already there isn’t much hope for this cycle one way or the other. 

“You’re in a better mood than last time.” Pink says. “Things better with White?” 

“You haven’t talked to him?”

“I haven’t had a cycle with him lately.” 

“You can only talk to the others during a cycle?” She drops her empty tube on the floor beside her helmet and sticks her hand under the cabinet. “Do you want the same flavor or a new one?” 

“Let’s spice it up.” 

You pass her a peach one. “Not a phrase I ever thought I would hear someone say about yogurt.” She settles back in with her new tube and after a moment says, 

“We only see each other in a cycle or when we’re dead.” You wait for her to elaborate. “When we get ejected we end up wandering around this broken down version of the ship. We don’t know where we go between the cycles that we win, we just appear wherever our counterparts were and move on. White and I aren’t often dead at the same time, so we don’t get to talk very much.” 

Huh. That’s… something. You don’t know what to do with that. You wonder if her Green has any theories on that. You’ll have to ask them next time you have a cycle together. “Yeah White and I are good, your White, to be honest if you could keep bumping off this one at the first opportunity you get I would be thrilled.” Pink snorts. “I think the other White and I are doing something akin to dating? At least as close as we can get given the circumstances.” 

“That’s a little sus, charcoal.” 

You have no way of defending yourself so you just sigh. “Yeah.” 

Pink likes the yogurt and the two of you manage to eat half a dozen tubes before the next meeting is called. As soon as Brown has said her piece about finding Red’s body you accuse Pink of sneaking off and disappearing, not seeing her in the halls at all for a long time. She tries to turn it back on you, implying you were avoiding detection by hiding in the vents. The others decide to vote you both out, though you think Brown is still holding some resentment towards Pink given how she got her booted a number of cycles ago. So they vote Pink first. Huh. You weren’t expecting that. You volunteer to walk Pink out. She hooks your arms together like she always does. 

“Does it bother you?” 

“All part of the job, charcoal. Thanks for the snack.” You eject her, and it is as unceremonious as it always is. 

Everyone dispurses after that, trying to squeeze in one more task or murder before the next meeting is called. You pull Brown to the side as she’s camping the emergency meeting button, which you’re pretty sure terrifies her. “I’m not going to hurt you, I just wanted to say that after you vote me out you need to vote Purple.” 

“Purple?” She says slowly, trying to put some distance between you. You let her. You’re not trying to scare her after all. “Do you have any evidence?”

“Not from this cycle.” You say honestly. You just know. You’re at least eighty percent sure that White and Purple are the only ones who eat their victims, there’s that pesky twenty percent that could leave another color the same species as those two, but it’s your best guess for this cycle. 

Brown considers you for a long moment. “I can keep an eye on him after.” But that’s the best she can do. 

“Either take a buddy or tell someone else what you’re doing, otherwise he’ll just kill you and you won’t have prepared the others.” 

The button flashes red again. Brown doesn’t hesitate to press it and call the next meeting. True to their word your crewmates vote you out next. You don’t protest as you go. You gave them a fighting chance in a cycle you thought was completely lost. It’s too bad you aren’t keeping tack well enough to be able to ask them if they won the next time you see them.

* * *

White is lying back on your bunk, still making his way through the short story collection. It was a bad cycle on your end. You and your crewmates couldn’t keep your shit straight for more than five minutes and honestly it felt like a mercy when White tore Blue’s head from his shoulders and ended the cycle. You’d barely even complained about how absolutely drenched in gore the action had left you, opting instead to go shower while White went off to do whatever and possibly debrief with his cohort. But now you’re both back in your bunk. You drop onto the floor, back pressed up against the edge of the bed and White’s free hand resting against the junction between your shoulder and neck, giving you absent-minded soothing touches as he reads. 

The tree house is staring at you. A monument to a past that you can’t remember. One so distant now it doesn’t even feel like it could ever be yours. Who were you? To bring something like this? Not entertaining, not useful, just nostalgic. Was this little piece of home so important to you you couldn’t bear to go three years without it? (“I went through all of the storage logs, we had three years worth of supplies at launch.” Green had said. “The cycles keep resetting to fifteen months worth left.”) You stare at the photo. It stares back. That sinking twisting in your gut that you are plagued by on the dead ship starts to settle into your bones. This picture was important to you at one point. 

But the person it was important to doesn’t exist anymore. And the person you are now, the person left behind in the wake of this memory loss only feels worse for having it. You lean forward, slipping away from White’s touch, and carefully peel up the strips of tape keeping it in place. You must have gotten it printed shortly before you left, because the paper is still solid, thick, and glossy as you hold it. You flip it over. Clear white paper. No writing, no date, nothing. It occurs to you that you don’t even know what your handwriting looks like anymore. 

“Hey White?” 

He click-hums. 

“Can I borrow your teeth for a second?” That gets his full attention, setting the book beside him and rolling to face you fully. 

“Any particular reason?” But his visor is already opening. 

“Just wanted to redecorate a little.” You climb onto the edge of the bed and he lets you bring your hand to his mouth, finding the tooth closest to the pale mauve scar you left with the scalpel. His tongue flicks out over the pad of your finger before you press your skin against the tooth. It doesn’t take much effort for blood to bloom around the cut and you pull your hand back. He sits up to watch you as you use the bead of blood to make a line across the back of the photo. White doesn’t say anything until after you’ve taped the picture back in place, the white back wet with your blood now facing out into your room. You sit back beside him on the edge of the bed and after a moment he takes your bleeding hand and flicks his tongue over the cut. 

“I don’t think I know anything about this ritual.”

“It’s not a ritual, or cultural thing. I just didn’t want to keep being reminded of something that doesn’t hold meaning to me anymore. I don’t know why I brought that. But at this point I do know what’s important to me here.” You’re grateful he doesn’t make you say anything else. You don’t quite know if you’re ready to say it. Instead he just closes his mouth and leans forward. You meet him halfway, your helmets bowed together for a long while.

* * *

You return Lime’s book and Yellow is kind enough to pass over her trilogy for your entertainment. Her excitement to have someone else to talk to about the series means you’re also going to have to read this between cycles. Because telling her that you’re borrowing it for White would probably get you thrown out of the airlock. Still, it’s a kind gesture so you thank her before heading back to your room. There’s no telling how much longer you have before your cycle starts and it wouldn’t hurt to get a head start on the book if you’re going to be sharing it. Though you wonder if you could coerce White into reading to you. 

You don’t know what sets you off, but as you turn the corner to the hall leading to the row of rooms on this side of the ship you feel a tingle across the back of your neck. It’s a paranoid little twinge that comes from cycles upon cycles that makes you tune back into your surroundings. You pause in the hall, glance behind you, up to the ceiling, over at the vent in the floor. You approach the vent and peer down into it. No glint of visor, knife, gun, or teeth stares back up at you. You straighten back up and make your way slowly down the hall. The door to your room stands open, bleeding a soft glow of light into the hall. Your grip on the book tightens slightly. You didn’t leave that open. Your eyes flick to the side of your visor. No task list yet. Which means one of your crewmates is in your room. You move quietly up to the threshold, half holding your breath. 

White is standing inside, staring at the bloodied back of the picture. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. “Hey,” White jumps a little. “The cycle must be about to start soon,” which is kind of too bad, you were looking forward to laying in your bed a while. You gently toss the book onto your bunk. “Yellow loaned that to me if we get bored between cycles.” Then you reach for him, one hand on his shoulder and the other at his hip so you can bring him close and rest your visors together. The next cycle is coming. You’re going to have to do your damndest to get him ejected. A soft sigh escapes you. You’d much rather just stay here for now. White is stiff under your hands and you pull back to ask what’s wrong. “Oh.” Your task list glows inside your helmet. You sigh again and tap your visors together one last time murmuring, “Give me a thirty second head start this time?” At least long enough to run up to the top of the ship. No one will find your body this cycle if he kills you down here. 

“Okay.” His voice is thick and low, barely a whisper. Smothering the inhuman sounds he’s used to making freely in front of you. Hmm, maybe he’ll keep you alive this cycle. If only so he can sink his teeth into you afterwards. That’s a tempting thought. You’ll have to stay on your toes for the rest of this cycle. 

“Thirty seconds.” You reiterate before turning and sprinting from the room. You’re only halfway up the stairs by the time you hit thirty, but thankfully you don’t hear White’s footsteps echoing yours.

* * *

You make it through transferring data between the Cafeteria and Admin and emptying out the garbage shoots before the first meeting is called. 

“I found Brown, she was torn up.” Orange says softly. “It was in the hall near the engines.” With that information you all do the same song and dance of relaying where you were prior to the meeting. You, Red, Lime, Yellow, and Green were all on the opposite side of the map. White was in Medbay, verified by Blue. Cyan was in Weapons, Pink was in the Cafeteria, and Purple was in Electrical. Things go back and forth for a few minutes, but you don’t speak up. Right now there’s not enough evidence to start pointing a finger at White. Especially not when Blue is vouching for him. 

Everyone agrees that going to groups is probably for the best and you break off into pairs and trios. Red and Blue, Yellow and Orange, Lime, Pink, and Cyan, and White and Green. Which you’re a little annoyed about. Not that you planned on pairing off with White, absolutely not that would not only look insanely suspicious given your general disposition towards your crewmate but you also are well aware that White absolutely will eat you if given the opportunity during a cycle. No, you just wanted to hang with Green. Because Green, both of them, are good, focused company during cycles. 

Purple doesn’t wait for you before heading towards the south hall. You don’t have any tasks in that direction for the time being and given his limited participation during the meeting you have a sneaking suspicion he is either one of the imposters or he really just has no desire to be anywhere near any of you at the moment. You can understand that and you don’t push your luck. You have things to do over in the east hall anyway. 

You’re finishing cleaning out the oxygen filter when the reactor starts to melt down. Shit. You are going to be a great target all the way over here. You move out from the room carefully, peering around the corners before swiftly making your way in the direction of the reactor. You make it to the hallway leading into the Cafeteria before you hear the sounds of a scuffle under the blaring of the alarm. The door is sealed and you start fiddling with it for a moment. There’s a heavy thud on the other side. All you have to do is get eyes on it and you can call this in. 

The door slides open and you rush inside, mouth half open and ready to put out the call over coms. You see the killer first, half hunched over the shape on the floor, suit dyed bright red under the warning lights flashing across the entire ship. They turn to look at you, shoulders going stiff and tense. Red, Orange, White, or Yellow. They straighten up, still half facing the body on the floor. 

The alarm stops. The lights go back to normal. White. Oh. You put your hand up to the side of your helmet to activate coms. “Em--” You’re not expecting White to rush up to you. Hand wrapping around your wrist and pulling it aside. You’re more surprised that the grip isn’t nearly as crushing as the ones you’ve come to expect, no prickle of claws biting through the fabric of your suit. Your breath catches in the back of your throat as he all but smashes his visor against yours. Silence stretches between you for a long moment. The glass of your visors clinks together and you realize he’s shaking. He’s still holding onto one of your wrists so you reach up with your other hand and gently cup the side of his helmet, running soothing fingers over the edge of his visor. 

“Hey, what’s going on?” You try to peer over his shoulder to see who he killed. “You can eat before I call it in, but you know the rules.” You still have to call it in, you still have to get him ejected. But something doesn’t sit right in your stomach. You crane your head around. Yeah he must be starving or something. Because the body, Green’s, is still intact, blood pooling on the floor around their stomach. Stomach? You lower your hand from the comms button and when you do White slowly lets go of your wrist. You hardly notice, eyes transfixed on the splatters of blood soaked into the length of his sleeve. “What--” the question dies on your tongue as you look back up to his face. Oh. 

This isn’t your White. 

The scalpel sinks easily under your ribs. Oh. The pain is a distant sensation. Much more present is the hot gush of blood as it flows under your suit. White’s shaking hands lose hold of the knife, leaving it stuck inside of you as he takes a step back. He trips over Green’s body and lands on his ass, blood splattering along his suit. So unlike your White. So incompetent. How had you not noticed before? You run your fingers over the handle of the knife. 021. Huh. Maybe you should have tried to find it in Security. 

“I get me, why Green?” It hurts to talk, but you think he missed your lungs, definitely your heart. But given the near constant hot rush of blood making its way down your skin he probably hit a vein or something else important. You’re getting dizzy. You lower yourself to a knee before you collapse and accidentally drive the blade in further. 

“Th-they’re a traitor too! You’ve both been working with the imposters, y-you’ve been letting them kill us.” His voice doesn’t stop shaking the entire time he speaks. Pathetic. Hypocrite. At least you never killed any of your crewmates. Well, not without majority vote at least. Your vision starts to go dark around the edges. You can feel the cold dead ship rushing up to meet you. Next cycle. Next cycle you need to tell your White. You need to tell the Greens. This is new. You didn’t know one of your own could turn traitor. 

You collapse fully to the floor. Next cycle. 

Everything goes black.

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, the brain worms will let me rest. Edit: That's it yall, unless something wild happens. Tagged "open/ambiguous ending" for a reason. There is no happy ending here, only the cycles and everything the crew of the Skeld has lost to them


End file.
